Psalm 131
3 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Romans 12×1Psalms 139×1Job 42×1Mark 10×11 Corinthians 14×1Lamentations 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The shortest of David's psalms and among the deepest: 'Jehovah, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too wonderful for me.' 'Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me': not the nursing infant demanding, but the weaned child content simply to be held. 'O Israel, hope in Jehovah from this time forth and for evermore.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 131The history
The whole psalm turns on one household picture, and it depends on a detail modern readers usually miss. Children in that world were nursed for two or three years, and weaning was a milestone worth a family feast — Abraham held one for Isaac.
The difference between the two states is the point. A nursing infant in his mother's arms is there for one reason and screams until he gets it. A weaned child in the same arms wants nothing but the arms. The singer says his soul is the second kind.
The things he says he has given up are the ambitions of a public man: eyes raised too high, involvement in matters too great and too marvelous. In a royal court those were the daily temptations — reaching for a rank, or demanding an explanation for a decision above your pay.
Its shortness is part of the design. Three verses in a collection full of long histories and national complaints, and the last of them turns outward to tell all Israel to do the same thing.
What it meant to them
Coming after a psalm about waiting through the night for forgiveness, this is what the waiting is supposed to feel like once it has settled.
For pilgrims who spent the journey worrying about the harvest, the neighbors, and the empire, the instruction was to stop clawing and simply stay in the arms.
Sources cited
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament , Psalms
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 131. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.