With לבּי לא־גבהּ the poet repudiates pride as being the state of his soul; with לא־רמוּ עיני (lo - ramū’ as in Pro 30:13, and before Ajin, e.g., also in Gen 26:10; Isa 11:2, in accordance with which the erroneous placing of the accent in Baer's text is to be corrected), pride of countenance and bearing; and with ולא־הלּכתּי, pride of endeavour and mode of action. Pride has its seat in the heart, in the eyes especially it finds its expression, and great things are its sphere in which it diligently exercises itself. The opposite of “great things” (Jer 23:3; Jer 45:5) is not that which is little, mean, but that which is small; and the opposite of “things too wonderful for me” (Gen 18:14) is not that which is trivial, but that which is attainable. אם־לא does not open a conditional protasis, for where is the indication of the apodosis to be found? Nor does it signify “but,” a meaning it also has not in Gen 24:38; Eze 3:6. In these passages too, as in the passage before us, it is asseverating, being derived from the usual formula of an oath: verily I have, etc. שׁוּה signifies (Isa 28:25) to level the surface of a field by ploughing it up, and has an ethical sense here, like ישׂר with its opposites עקב and עפּל. The Poel סּומם is to be understood according to דּוּמיּה in Psa 62:2, and דּוּמם in Lam 3:26. He has levelled or made smooth his soul, so that humility is its entire and uniform state; he has calmed it so that it is silent and at rest, and lets God speak and work in it and for it: it is like an even surface, and like the calm surface of a lake. Ewald and Hupfeld's rendering: “as a weaned child on its mother, so my soul, being weaned, lies on me,” is refuted by the consideration that it ought at least to be כּגמוּלה, but more correctly כּן גמולה; but it is also besides opposed by the article which is swallowed up in כּגּמל, according to which it is to be rendered: like one weaned beside its mother (here כּגמול on account of the determinative collateral definition), like the weaned one (here כּגּמול because without any collateral definition: cf. with Hitzig, Deu 32:2, and the like; moreover, also, because referring back to the first גמול, cf. Hab 3:8), is my soul beside me (Hitzig, Hengstenberg, and most expositors). As a weaned child - viz. not one that is only just begun to be weaned, but an actually weaned child (גּמל, cognate גּמר eta, to bring to an end, more particularly to bring suckling to an end, to wean) - lies upon its mother without crying impatiently and
