Psalm 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.
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" {p}, 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.
{o} yvpn "animam meam", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.
{p} al Ma "si non", Montanus; "male sit mihi si non", Tigurine version.