Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
4. "If I had not lowly thoughts, but have lifted up my soul, as one taken from his mother's breast, such the reward for my soul" (ver. 2). He seemeth as it were to have bound himself by a curse: ...as though he had been going to say, Let it so happen to me. "As one taken away from his mother's breast, may be my soul's reward." Ye know that the Apostle saith to some weak brethren, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." There are weak persons who are not fit for strong meat; they wish to grasp at that which they cannot receive: and if they ever do receive, or seem to themselves to receive what they have not received, they are puffed up thereby, and become proud thereupon; they seem to themselves wise men. Now this happeneth to all heretics; who since they were animal and carnal, by defending their depraved opinions, which they could not see to be false, were shut out of the Catholic Church. ...
5. Another o...
3. "Lord, my heart was not lifted up, neither were mine eyes raised on high" (ver. 1); "I have not exercised myself in great matters, nor in wonderful things which are too high for me" (ver. 2). Let this be more plainly spoken and heard. I have not been proud: I have not wished to be known among men as for wondrous powers; nor have I sought anything beyond my strength, whereby I might boast myself among the ignorant. As that Simon the sorcerer wished to advance into wonders above himself, on that account the power of the Apostles more pleased him, than the righteousness of Christians. ...What is above my strength, he saith, I have not sought; I have not stretched myself out there, I have not chosen to be magnified there. How deeply this self-exaltation in the abundance of graces is to be feared, that no man may pride himself in the gift of God, but may rather preserve humility, and may do what is written: "The greater thou art, the more humble thyself, and thou shall find favour before...
So reward The meaning is, that according to his disposition with regard to humility, so he expected a reward in his soul to return to him, and stick as close to him as the child just weaned, which would willingly never be separated from the mother. (Challoner)
If I was not humble, may my soul be treated like an infant Hebrew, "If I did not render (or humble and silence) my soul, like an infant weaned from his mother, let my soul be to me as a weaned child. "I willingly submit to all thy rigours, if I did not adore thy ways in silence and in humiliation. (Calmet)
The text may be differently rendered. (Berthier)
As children come willingly to their mother, so the child of God approaches to Him, though he may not always find the same sweetness; and he expects that he will be rewarded accordingly. (Worthington)
Gemul means, "a weaned infant, or a reward. "(Du Hamel)
Then he goes on: Like a weaned child upon his mother's breast, so will you reward my soul. We are told that when Isaac was weaned Abraham made a feast because now that he was weaned he was on the verge of boyhood and was passing beyond milk food. The Apostle feeds all that are imperfect in the faith and still babes in the things of God with the milk of knowledge. Thus to cease to need milk marks the greatest possible advance. Abraham proclaimed by a joyful feast that his son had come to stronger meat, and the Apostle refuses bread to the carnal-minded and those that are babes in Christ. And so the Prophet prays that God, because he has not lifted up his heart, nor walked amid things great and wonderful that are above him, because he has not been humble-minded but did lift up his soul, may reward his soul, lying like a weaned child upon his mother: that is to say that he may be deemed worthy of the reward of the perfect, heavenly and living bread, on the ground that by reason of his wor...
