Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Weaned Child With His Mother
Psalms 131:1-3
1 A Song of Ascents. By David. Yahweh, my heart isn’t arrogant, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me. · WEB
Three verses by a king about the ambition he has put down, and the image he chooses is a child who has stopped demanding.
Yahweh, my heart isn't arrogant, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me Psalms 131:1.
Three verses, attributed to David, and it is the shortest of the Songs of Ascents. The opening is a denial of three things in ascending order — the heart, then the eyes, then the reach — and it is made by a man who ruled a country.
Things too wonderful for me is the phrase Job uses when he finally stops arguing Job 42:3. It does not mean matters that are dull or unimportant; it means the ones that are genuinely beyond the person considering them, and the psalm's claim is that he has stopped walking into them.
A statement like this is impossible to make without contradicting it, which is presumably why the psalm is so short.
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me Psalms 131:2.
The image is chosen with care and the detail is everything. Not a nursing infant, which is content only while being fed and screams otherwise. A weaned child has been through the worst separation of its short life, has stopped demanding the thing it wanted most, and can now be with its mother simply for her company.
That is the psalm's account of quietness. It is not natural calm and it is not indifference; it comes after something was given up, and it is described as an achievement — I have stilled and quieted, a verb the writer applies to himself.
Israel, hope in Yahweh, from this time forward and forever more Psalms 131:3.
The third verse hands it to everyone else, in the same words the psalm before used. A private settling of one man's ambition ends as an instruction to a nation.
settled What this mark means