Psalm 131 - A Song of Ascents
Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
Self-soul-spirt
If you’re more attuned to the New International Version (NIV) you’ll see that ‘soul’ has been replaced with ‘self’. A semantic difference only or a profound shift in meaning? If you think about how often we use the word self or ‘myself’, you’ll begin to get a feel for how old-fashioned and other-worldly the word soul has become in everyday parlance.
It mirrors the move away from using the term ‘creation’ towards ‘universe’, from a divine to a materialistic perspective. Approximately 35% of the UK population are atheists, and 35% believe in God. Only 13%, however, are strict materialists, ie no spiritual element to existence.
Biblically, the soul refers to the mind (the ability to think), the emotions (the ability to feel) and the will (the ability to act), and together make up the essential personality of an individual created by God. The spirit is a deeper realm that communes with God.
Verse 1.
Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
Taken together with Psalm 123 v 2 ‘..as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters…so our eyes look to the Lord our God’ we might be tempted to think the Bible is advocating a passive, anti-intellectual docility, reducing us to obedient slaves, incapable of thought. A cursory study of OT biblical characters up to John the Baptist, then Jesus Himself, and on into the lives of the apostles, will correct this misconception.
The secret lies in a paradox. Jesus said ‘The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise’ John 5v19
Jesus poured out spiritual teaching that has profoundly changed the world, mostly through simple story-parables. He healed the sick, raised the dead, took 12 men and fashioned them into apostles that fulfilled Israel’s calling to be a light to the Gentiles, and spread the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob around the globe, and rose from the dead.
This has become our calling and the essence of Psalm 131 v1.
At the close of 2025, it’s a good time to review our lives – are we doing only what we see the Father doing? Are we committing ourselves, as servants of God, only to things that we see the hand of our master calling us to? Do some things need to be pruned? Less may well be more!
we are called to quieten the chatter of our soul
Verse 2
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
This is the exact opposite of the Buddhist version of meditation, when the goal is to empty the mind, look inward to pure awareness, and clear the mind of self. In verse two, we’re instructed to deal with an over-active soul!
Our thinking can become the be-all and end-all of our existence, and we become reliant on our cerebral abilities. Or we become excessively emotional, and the emotions overwhelm our ability to commune with God or think clearly. Or we become wilful, making decisions without thinking them through or considering their emotional impact on others.
In verse two, we are called to quieten the chatter of our soul, recognising its vital and wonderful place within us, but also recognising that it needs to serve the spirit and not become its master.
The picture of a contented infant having been filled with milk is the biblical version of meditation. Meditation is when we stop the chatter of the soul and commune with God to receive from the fullness of God, not the emptying of our minds.
‘And of His fulness, we have all received, grace upon grace’ John 1v16
Verse 3
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
This is specifically addressed to Israel and may, of course, be applied to Jews around the world, whether in Israel or its diaspora. Through Christ, we Gentile believers are now included in the blessings of Israel, ‘grafted in’, as Paul teaches in Romans 11.
Psalm 131 turns out to be a short discipleship training manual! We learn that to be submissive to God as Lord and Master is not a call to passivity but to do only what we see the Father doing. Our focus, our hope, therefore, is always directed at God, not ourselves. We are not independent of God; our hope comes from God. In fact, the more our understanding grows, our hope is intimately entwined with God’s hope.
Lastly, Psalm 131 is the penultimate Psalm of Ascent; Psalms that were sung on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and, specifically, the temple to worship God. The ‘quietening of the soul’ then, is the final preparation before encountering God’s presence, directly. In the Western world, we are bounced between relying too heavily on rational thinking, empathetic emotion, and worthiness through effort.
None of these three attributes or abilities is without value, but Psalm 131 calls us to a deeper communion - with God Himself.