Psalms 131:2

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself,.... Or "my soul" (o); behaved quietly and peaceably towards all men, even his inferiors in Saul's court and elsewhere, and had given no tokens of a restless,

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

When my mind was provoked to irregular practices, either by my own corrupt heart, or by Saul’ s implacable rage and tyranny, or by the solicitation of any of my followers, as 1Sa 24,1 Samuel 26, I restrained and subdued all such evil motions. As a child that is weaned of his mother, either, 1. As void of all that ambition and malice wherewith I am charged as a child newly weaned; or rather, 2. As wholly depending upon God’ s providence for the way and. time of bringing me to the kingdom, as the poor helpless infant, when it is deprived of its natural and accustomed food, the mother’ s milk, takes no care to provide for itself, but wholly relies upon its mother’ s care and providence for its support.

Psalms 131:2 Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul [is] even as a weaned child.Ver. 2. Surely I have behaved] Heb. if I have not, &c., a deep asseveration, such as hath the force of an oath, Si non composui et sedavi. And quieted myself] Heb. stilled or made silent my soul; chiding it when distempered or noiseful, as the mother doth her weanling. As a child that is weaned of his mother] Who neither thinketh great things of himself nor seeketh great things for himself; but is lowly and fellowly, Matthew 18:1, innocent and unaware, taking what his mother giveth him, and resting in her love. My soul is even as a weaned child] Who will not be drawn to suck again, though never so fair and full strutting a breast. So not David, the world’ s dugs.

(2) Surely.—This seems the best way of rendering the phrase, which literally is if not, and is plainly elliptical, being commonly used to express strong asseveration after an oath. I have behaved . . .—The figure here is plain. It is taken from a baby’s first real sorrow when he not merely feels pain, but is allowed no access to that which was his solace hitherto. He moans, and frets, and sobs, but at last is quieted by the love which is powerful to soothe, even when it must deny. So, as George Herbert says of man, “If goodness lead him not, then weariness may toss him to God’s breast.” But the exact rendering is matter of difference and difficulty. The verb rendered “behave” means to make equal or like. This is its meaning, even in Isaiah 38:13, which is the only place referred to by Gesenius in support of his translation here “calmed.” We cannot, therefore, render, as many critics, “I calmed and quieted my soul.” But, as in Hebrew, it is common to express one idea by the combination of two verbs, so “I made like, and I quieted my soul,” is really an idiomatic way of saying “I made as quiet as.” The redundancy of the sign of comparison as after verbs of likening may be illustrated by Psalms 49:12, as well as by the passage in Isaiah referred to above. We thus get: “Surely I made my soul as quiet as a weaned child upon his mother, as a weaned child upon me, my soul.” Instead of fretting after what is too great for him, he quiets his ambition, and his spirit lies calm and gentle, like a child in its mother’s arms, that after the first trouble of weaning is over is soothed and lulled by the maternal caress. Perhaps the opposite idea, expressed by the common phrase, “to nurse ambitious thoughts,” may serve to illustrate this somewhat unwonted image. For Israel as a “weaned child,” comp. Isaiah 28:9.

Verse 2. I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child] On the contrary, I have been under the rod of others, and when chastised have not complained; and my silence under my affliction was the fullest proof that I neither murmured nor repined, but received all as coming from the hands of a just God. My soul is even as a weaned child.] I felt I must forego many conveniences and comforts which I once enjoyed; and these I gave up without repining or demurring.

2. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul: Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, Like a weaned child is my soul upon me. He has calmed (lit. levelled, Isaiah 28:25, of levelling ground for sowing) his soul, and silenced it (Psalms 62:1; Psalms 62:5; Lamentations 3:26). It is no longer disturbed by the storms of passion and the clamours of ambition. As the child that has gone through the troublesome process of weaning can lie happily and contentedly in its mother’s arms without fretting or craving for the breast, so the Psalmist’s soul, weaned from worldly ambition, can lie still without murmuring or repining. It is not the helplessness of the child—children in the East were sometimes not weaned till the age of three, 2Ma 7:27, cp. note on 1 Samuel 1:23-24—but its contentment in spite of the loss of what once seemed indispensable, that is the point of the comparison. The same preposition which is used of the child in its mother’s arms, lit. upon its mother, is used of the soul’s relation to the Psalmist, upon me. The soul in Hebrew psychology was sometimes distinguished from a man’s whole ‘self,’ and regarded as acting upon it or related to it from without. Cp. Psalms 42:4-6; Psalms 42:11; Psalms 142:3; &c. See Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology (E.T.) pp. 179 ff.

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself - Margin, as in Hebrew, my soul. The Hebrew is, “If I have not soothed and quieted my soul.” This is a strong mode of affirming that he had done it.

2. The conditional Hebrew particle àí, (eem,) here joined with the negative, ìà, (loh,) takes the sense of solemn asseveration, as in the formula of swearing: “Certainly, verily, I have behaved myself,” etc. See on Psalms 132:3.