“Like a weaned child”
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:2 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A tender picture of a baby resting on its mother.
The cultural key
Most readers picture a nursing baby soothed at the breast, but David specifically says a weaned child, and that changes everything. A nursing infant is restless until it is fed; it clings and cries for what it wants. A weaned child has passed beyond that, it no longer frets for milk and can simply be with its mother, at peace in her presence for her own sake rather than for what it can extract. That is the state David claims for his soul: he has 'stilled and quieted' it, given up striving after 'great things too lofty for me,' and learned to rest in God without demanding or grasping. The picture is not infant dependence but mature contentment, a soul that has let go of craving and is calm simply to be near God. It is the Old Testament kin of Paul's 'I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances' (Philippians 4:11).
Recovered meaning
The image is a weaned child, not a nursing one: a soul that no longer frets and grasps for what it wants but rests contentedly with God for His own sake. David pictures quiet, mature trust that has given up craving.