John Gill Commentary Psalms 131:2

"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 (ASV)

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, turbulent, and ambitious spirit; as well as behaved patiently under all his troubles and afflictions, reproaches and calumnies: or "if I have not" ^F16, being in the form of an oath or imprecation, as Kimchi and Aben Ezra observe; if I have not thus behaved, let it come to me so and so, or let me be as a weaned child.

Noldius renders it by way of interrogation, "have I not composed and quieted myself?" &c.

The Targum is: ``if I have not put the hand to the mouth, and caused my soul to be silent, until it heard the words of the law;''

as a child that is weaned of his mother :

and, for the further confirmation of it, it is added:

my soul [is] even as a weaned child ;

innocent and harmless, had no more ill designs against Saul than a weaned child; humble, meek, and lowly, and had no more aspiring and ambitious views than such an one; like that, weaned from the world, the riches, honours, pleasures, and profits of it; as well as from nature, from self, from his own righteousness, and from all dependence on it; and as a child that is weaned from the breast wholly depends on its nurse for sustenance, so did he wholly depend upon God, his providence, grace, and strength; and as to the kingdom, he had no more covetous desires after it than a weaned child has to the breast, and was very willing to wait the due time for the enjoyment of it.

The Targum: ``as one weaned on the breasts of its mother, I am strengthened in the law.''

This is to be understood not of a child while weaning, when it is usually peevish, fretful, and froward; but when weaned, and is quiet and easy in its mother's arms without the breast.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F16: (al Ma) "si non", Montanus; "male sit mihi si non", Tigurine version.