Bernard P. Robinson, «Form and Meaning in Psalm 131», Vol. 79 (1998) 180-197
Psalm 131 displays a subtle play on words. The psalmist has silenced and calmed down his soul/breast (he has put an end to its loud complaints). The two verbs used express or suggest the idea of assimilation (I have transformed it into something silent and something calm), which leads up to the material image which follows. In 2b gamul means a child that has been weaned or is happy (and has stopped crying loudly); instead of kaggamul one should read tiggmol, you have been nice to me. Although the psalm has an unusual form, it has the same structure as Psalm 130. It probably constitutes a literary unit. It may by royal psalm.
and the noun #$pn in two different senses: "Surely I have calmed and quieted my voice/breathing apparatus like a weaned child on its mothers shoulder. Surely you have dealt kindly with me" 41. The pun cannot readily be rendered in English, though we could perhaps translate lmg as "toddler" and lmgt (rather less felicitously) as "coddled".
As noted above, de Boer has drawn attention to a text in 2 Chronicles (32,25) where we find not only the idiom l( lmg used in this sense, but also the verb hbg used of bl: Hezekiah, being a proud man (wbl h@bg) was not grateful for the good done to him (wyl( lmg). The closeness of the two texts makes it likely, I would suggest, that the Chronicler was aware of, and was deliberately recalling, Ps 131. His familiarity with the preceding and the following Psalm is evident from 2 Chr 6,40-42, where Solomon is made to echo them. My suspicion that l( lmg is being used in our text in the sense claimed is confirmed by the striking parallel with Ps 116,7 ykyl( lmg hwhy-yk ykyxwnml w#$pn ybw#$, "Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you." (NRSV)
It is time to return to the question of whether 2b goes with 2a, or whether it marks a new statement. On the whole, I think it goes with both what precedes and what follows. The Psalmist notes that he has quieted his complaints, and proceeds in v. 3 to encourage his fellow-Israelites similarly to trust in Yhwh. 2b does, though, build on what has gone before: although 2a has not directly used maternal imagery, it has spoken of calming the wpn, using verbs which suggest assimilation with something shortly to be identified.
V. 3. Skehan among others has noted connections with the previous Psalm. In Ps 130,7 [EVV 130,6] the phrase found at 131,3 occurs: hwhy-l) l)r#&y lxy; both Psalms also speak of y#$pn (130,5,6; 131,2 [bis]). Further, in both Psalms the writer adopts a lowly pose; and both Psalms are, as Dahood notes, bipartite: beginning with an