motherhood in the Psalms

Today, I’m cherrypicking a few references to motherhood in the Psalms to share with some brief thoughts. I hope these verses encourage us by revealing the high value God places on early motherhood, and indeed how God’s parental care models and prefigures the care we provide as mothers.

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Psalm 22:9-10)

From birth I have relied on you;
    you brought me forth from my mother’s womb.
    I will ever praise you. (Psalm 71:6)

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)

The thing I love about these three passages is that the psalmist highlights God’s care for a person through their mother’s body from the very earliest days. God’s care is not somehow abstract or independent of the means to accomplish that care: God works, physically, in God’s world through such ordinary and marvelous creations as uteri and breasts.

Though my father and mother forsake me,
    the Lord will receive me. (Psalm 27:10)

But I have calmed and quieted myself,
    I am like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child I am content. (Psalm 131:2)

These two verses remind us that, just as parental care ideally encompasses not only physical needs but also emotional ones, so also God’s care is emotionally attuned and tender. In the first verse, the psalmist hyperbolically imagines how even the strength of parental love is eclipsed by God’s steadfast presence. In the second, the psalmist pictures their relationship to God with the image of a weaned child (likely an older toddler or preschooler), who finds calm and contentment in closeness with their mother.

Turn to me and have mercy on me;
    show your strength in behalf of your servant;
save me, because I serve you
    just as my mother did. (Psalm 86:16)

Truly I am your servant, Lord;
    I serve you just as my mother did;
    you have freed me from my chains. (Psalm 116:16)

These verses use the same phrase (“I serve you just as my mother did”) to recall the spiritual heritage the psalmist received from their mother. Psalm 86 is attributed to David, whose mother is hardly even mentioned in the Bible—but here we can hear an echo of her mothering work, caring for her child’s spiritual needs.

So we can see that in these snippets from the Psalms, motherhood is envisioned as care for physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. As a mother, that feels like a heavy responsibility. In my house, at least, the work is never done in even one of these domains, let alone all of them. But we’re missing the point if we stop at the human-motherhood implications of these verses: God’s parental care, according to the psalmist, is the true and better version of all the care described. As we imperfectly image this care to our children, by grace, we can also receive it for ourselves from God.