Psalm 131 Quiet Soul

Psalm 131 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and for evermore.

This is one of the shortest of the songs of ascents or of any psalms and is again Of David. In verses 1 and 2 David says to the LORD of himself that his heart is not proud and his eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me he says. Rather, he has stilled and quietened his soul. He uses the figure of a weaned child with its mother to describe how his soul is within. "I am not a cry-baby" he says. I do not demand what is mine like a baby crying for its mother's milk. Rather, I am like a weaned child, waiting until the time when the mother has decided to feed her child. He closes the psalm with an exhortation similar to that at the end of the last psalm, O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and for evermore. The background is, as so often, not known to us but it is likely to be from that period when although David had been anointed as king and although he knew he would be king one day, he was, nevertheless, a man on the run from murderous Saul. Perhaps the time of Absalom's rebellion fits just as well. There is also something to be said for the view that it was written near the end of his life. It is the sort of psalm one can imagine Abraham or Joseph writing. Certainly those who truly trust in the Lord will take such an approach. Paul is another one who comes to mind here (Philippians 4:11ff). The Lord Jesus himself knew this psalm and no doubt applied to his own situation and circumstances as we may too.