Devotional Short Note to Psalm 131: This
Psalm is the picture below the way David saw it and the way I understand it
from David. Mothers will fully understand this psalm. Father too that is why
David understood it. David was a father himself. There is something about
weaning a child that has a beauty in itself. The peacefulness of the baby, the
happiness, the satisfaction, the comfort, the reliance, the innocence, the
cuteness, every human being is attracted by it. Ever seen a busy shopping-mall
and a sleeping baby in father or mother’s baby bag strapped in front or on the
back? Everyone is running to and fro and shouting, but the baby is in
dreamland. With a smile. Mother or father is near, stomach is full, nothing
else matters. This psalm is about this situation. Except it is not a baby, but
David’s soul is the baby. The soul needs feeding and hope from the Word of God
in His promises is the milk that feeds his soul. So the soul is at peace and
content and satisfied. There is no ambitious opportunism. There is no
calculative politics involved. There is no wheeling and dealing. No
discriminatory cutting out of this one or that one. None of it. “Lord, my heart is not arrogant/lifted
up/exalted/high nor mine eyes *growing loose [*the Arabic has it as ‘treacherously’
in the Dictionary but one should prefer the Akkadian ramû meaning ‘grow
loose/loosen’]. His eyes are not negligent, idle, slack. He is careful what he
is reading or looking at. He is not negligently watching anything dished up to
him by the editorial room of the broadcasting corporation of his time. There is
not an ‘anything goes’ approach. He is selective, careful, disciplined. His
eyes will not affect his soul with loose ideas, ideas that conflict with the
Word of God. He will not let popular culture, dished up in beautiful Hollywood garments,
play loose games with his innermost thoughts and emotions. “And not do I walk in what is greatness”.
The two sentences are parked the same way as one can see in the block around
the “and not” (131:1c and d). “And not grow loose my eyes” (131:1c) “And not do I walk in what is greatness”
(131:1d). What the world defines as “great” is not
my aim at all Lord. “and in what is falling [literal] from
me” (131:1e). Dictionaries are written by people who stand with their feet in
confessions or ideology or some petty ideas. They will define only as far as
they can see and if they are living a licentious lifestyle, the Holy Spirit will
not show them much. Religion is logic but not all logic. It is logic and the
Spirit of God and logic succumbs to the Spirit’s will. Always. It cannot be
falling in a pit because it is “from me”. Not “falling under my feet” for the
same reason. Not “falling prostrate” because it is “from me”. There is a case
of desertion “falling away”. To go over to the other side. David says he is not
going to sell his vote for friendship and lose his dignity with God. He refused
to be bought or sold. If ideas or programs “fall away from him” he will not
walk after it to follow it. They go by themselves minus David. How did David succeed in attaining this
individual eccentric unpopular position in a culture overwhelmed society
dominating everyone’s perceptions? “If not, I have stilled and quieted my
soul” (131:2a). Here is the picture in the drawing of the baby and the mother.
His soul is that baby. He stilled it and quieted it like mothers do. The soul
says follow, go, why not, I want it! But the screaming voice of the soul’s desires
are stilled and quieted by David. Of course David is a Christ filled person
with the Holy Spirit assisting. It is the only way. Choosing the right is already a victory
for God against Satan in this-world conflict, even if it is a heathen doing it.
“Like a weaned child that is upon his mother”
(131:2b) “Like a weaned child upon me, my soul”
(131:2c). When the religion of Israel became
corrupt, it incorporated Astarte (female) as goddess on every mounting in the
form of green tree worship. One of the motifs used was the cow and calf motif
that can be found in numerous examples from ivories stolen by Sargon II in 720
BCE from Samaria and Hamath at Nimrud and also later in a Greek vase of 520 BCE
but in Israel at the Negev site on a hill at Kuntillet cAjrud. There
is a preoccupation with the mother and child idea in the Ancient Near East that
is drawn into religion, albeit apostate religion. David is not borrowing from outside. He
talks with experience. Therefore he asked Israel to hope in the Lord. “Hope O Israel, unto the Lord” (131:3a) “From this time and unto eternity”
(131:3b). Hope is the milk with which David feeds
his soul and the soul is quiet by the innermost thought that God will keep His
promises as outlined in the Word. That strengthened David’s hope from now unto
eternity come.