Bible Strands
Psalms 56:8
You have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle—are they not in Your book?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David speaks to God from a position of vulnerability, surrounded by enemies (vv. 7, 9), asserting that God has been watching his flight and collecting his grief.
The words — נֹדִי (nodi, "my wanderings") and נֹאדֶךָ (noadhekha, "your skin-bottle") share the root נֹד, binding the speaker's scattered movements to the container that holds his tears.
The thread — The image of a divine record runs through Malachi 3:16 (a scroll of remembrance for those who fear the LORD) and echoes in 2 Kings 20:5, where God's response to Hezekiah's prayer is itself an act of accounting.
Why it lands — The verse is not a promise of relief but a claim of witness: God has counted what was done to the speaker, and that count is stored, not lost. It asks the reader to hold their own suffering as something received and filed, not merely endured.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 20:5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I will surely heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the house of the LORD.
- Malachi 3:16 At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name.
- Psalms 39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.
- Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd. ‘He will lead them to springs of living water,’ and ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
- Psalms 126:5 Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.
- Matthew 10:30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
- Psalms 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.
- Psalms 121:8 The LORD will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.
- Hebrews 11:13 All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
- Isaiah 63:9 In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.