Psalms 131
Psalm 131 carries the heading A Song of degrees of David - one of the fifteen short psalms (120-134) sung by pilgrims as they climbed the road up to Jerusalem for the great feasts. The word translated degrees means steps or goings-up, and these were the songs of the ascent. This one is among the very shortest in the whole book: three verses, a few lines, easily read in under a minute. And yet inside that small space is one of the steepest climbs the soul ever makes - the ascent out of restless striving into rest.3
It opens not with a boast but with a denial: LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me (v. 1). David names three places pride lives - the heart, the eyes, and the reach - and lays each one down. The proud heart that thinks itself bigger than it is; the lofty eyes that look down on others or climb toward what is above them; and the restless reaching after great matters and things too high. This is not the abandonment of all ambition; it is the refusal to force doors God has not opened, the choosing of one's own true place rather than grasping after another's.
Then comes the image the whole psalm turns on, and it is one of the tenderest in all of Scripture: Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child (v. 2).1 The picture is carefully chosen. A nursing infant is not at rest - it frets and clutches because it wants the milk. A weaned child has been through the hard passage of weaning and out the other side: it can lie against its mother and simply be near her, content for her own sake rather than for what she provides. David says he has done that to his own soul - quieted it, stilled its grasping. And the psalm ends by holding the same rest out to everyone: Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever (v. 3). The New Testament will hear in this small song the voice of the One who said, learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29).2
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Psalm 131:1-3 · A Song of degrees of DavidA Weaned Child, and the Hope of Israel
1LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. 2Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. 3Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.
The psalm opens by emptying its hands. Before David says a single thing about what he is, he says three times over what he is not: LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me (v. 1). Notice where he looks for pride - not out at his enemies but in at himself, and in three particular places. First the heart, the inner self, the source: a heart is haughty when it quietly believes it deserves more, sits higher, matters more than it does. Then the eyes: lofty eyes are eyes that look down on people or climb hungrily toward what is above their owner's station - the glance of comparison and ambition. And then the reach of the hands, the great matters and things too high. The remarkable thing is that David, of all people, prays this. He was a king, a man entrusted with enormous matters; this is no plea of someone with nothing to be proud of. It is the deliberate, hard-won decision of someone who could have grasped, and chose not to. Humility, here, is not thinking poorly of yourself. It is the honest, restful acceptance of your actual size before God - no longer pretending to be larger, no longer aching to be.
The line that completes verse 1 is easy to read past, and worth slowing over: neither do I exercise myself… in things too high for me. The old phrase exercise myself carries the sense of busying oneself, working away at something, walking back and forth over it; the Hebrew note behind the verse even glosses too high as “too wonderful.”3 David is not confessing that he has stopped thinking, or stopped caring about great things. He is confessing that he has stopped forcing the locks on doors God has not opened - stopped wearing himself out over matters that are not his to settle, outcomes he cannot control, mysteries above his pay grade and questions above his understanding. There is a particular exhaustion that comes from trying to manage what was never given to you to manage: the future, other people's choices, the why behind a grief, the running of a universe. To say I do not exercise myself in things too high for me is to hand those things back to the One whose size actually fits them. It is not the surrender of curiosity or of effort; it is the surrender of the anxious overreach that mistakes worry for responsibility. And the moment it is laid down, the soul can finally be still - which is exactly where verse 2 goes.
At the center of the psalm stands a single, astonishing claim about the inner life: Surely I have behaved and quieted myself (v. 2). The verbs are active. David did not wait for circumstances to calm down; he quieted his own soul, the way a parent settles a fretting child or a hand stills the surface of disturbed water. This is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of the work involved in rest - for a striving soul does not go quiet on its own. It has to be soothed, settled, brought down off its restlessness on purpose and again and again. There is a deep dignity in this. David is not passive here; he is doing something, and the something is the hardest discipline there is: refusing to let the heart keep grasping. Anyone can stay busy. It takes a particular kind of strength to quiet oneself - to stop the inner clamor, to let the unanswered question stay unanswered, to lie down inside while the world insists you should be up and reaching. The psalm treats this stillness not as collapse but as accomplishment: a soul brought to peace by the patient, repeated choice to stop striving and trust.
The psalm could have ended at verse 2, a private peace between one soul and its God. Instead it turns outward and widens to include the whole people: Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever (v. 3). What David has found alone, he holds out to everyone - and that turn matters. The quiet of the weaned child is not a rare gift for the unusually serene; it is meant to become the posture of a whole community before God. Notice that the resting soul of verse 2 and the hoping people of verse 3 are the same thing seen from two sides. To hope in the LORD is to lean the weight of the future onto Him rather than onto one's own grasping - which is exactly what the weaned child does, resting against the mother instead of clutching for the milk. And the timeframe is total: from henceforth and for ever. The stillness is not a mood for a good day; it is a settled way of being that runs from this moment out past the edge of time. The psalm that began with one man laying down his haughty heart ends by inviting an entire people, and every reader after them, into the same rest - to stop striving, and to hope in the LORD, now and always.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Psalm 131 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for gamul (v. 2, the “weaned” child), for gabah (v. 1, the “haughty” heart and “lofty” eyes), and for the long Jewish discussion of how a soul is quieted and why David likens it to a child no longer at the breast.
- Psalm 131 ↔ Matthew 11 · Matthew 18 · Philippians 2 · Philippians 4Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Psalm 131 to the New Testament - the rest promised to the meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29), the call to become as little children (Matt. 18:3-4), the contentment Paul learned in every state (Phil. 4:11), and the One who made himself of no reputation (Phil. 2:7).
- Psalm 131 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Psalm 131 - the meaning of A Song of degrees, the idiom behind “things too high for me,” the difficult verb rendered “I have behaved and quieted myself,” and the force of the picture of a weaned child resting against its mother.
Where this echoes in Scripture
A Weaned Child, and the Hope of Israel
- Matthew 11:28-29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.The unhaughty heart of verse 1 named by the Lord Himself - the lowliness that finds rest.
- Matthew 18:3-4Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.The weaned child of verse 2 set in the midst of the strivers as the picture of the kingdom.
- Philippians 4:11I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.The quieted, contented soul of verse 2 - a contentment learned, not inborn.
- Philippians 2:6-8made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant... and humbled himself.The refusal of haughtiness (v. 1) reaching its depth - the highest taking the lowest place.
- Psalm 130:7Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.The neighboring Song of degrees with verse 3’s exact call - Israel, hope in the LORD.