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Psalm 56:8
You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?
6They conspire and lurk, watching my steps. They are eager to take my life.
7Shall they escape by iniquity? In anger cast down the peoples, God.
8You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?
9Then my enemies shall turn back in the day that I call. I know this: that God is for me.
10In God, I will praise his word. In the LORD, I will praise his word.
Notice
Tears kept in a container and recorded in God's book speak to the fear that suffering passes unseen or is soon forgotten.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What part of your life feels like wandering that no one has counted?
Write on thisWhat changes in your prayer when you picture God keeping your tears?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Psalm 139:16Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.Both psalms speak of God's book as a record of a life known to him.
2 Kings 20:5“Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, ‘The LORD, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. …Both passages describe God taking notice of tears, with Hezekiah receiving a specific promise of healing.
Malachi 3:16Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the …Both passages use a written record before God to express his remembrance of people.
Psalm 39:12“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.Both prayers bring tears before God, speaking to him from lives marked by wandering or being a stranger.
Revelation 7:17for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their …Both passages portray God's care for tears: Psalm 56 speaks of keeping them, while Revelation speaks of wiping them away.
Psalm 126:5–6Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.Tears appear in both psalms; one speaks of God keeping them, the other of sowing in tears and reaping in joy.
Matthew 10:30But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.Counting wanderings and numbering hairs both express attention to details of a person's life.
Psalm 121:8The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more.Both psalms connect God's care with human movement, whether wanderings or going out and coming in.
Hebrews 11:13These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and …The shared language concerns wandering and pilgrimage; Hebrews speaks of dying in faith, while Psalm 56 speaks of tears God keeps.
Isaiah 63:9In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried …Both passages describe God's care amid affliction, expressed through keeping tears in the psalm and carrying his people in Isaiah.
Job 16:20My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,Both speakers bring their tears before God amid hostility from other people.
Exodus 32:32Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”Both prayers mention God's book, though Psalm 56 concerns remembered sorrow and Exodus concerns a plea for forgiveness.
Where this verse fits
Grief. loneliness. feeling distant from God.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
The danger around the psalmist has not yet passed when he speaks of God's care. Your tears need no disguise before the God who takes account of them.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).