Bible Reading and Commentary: Psalm 55:9

Psalm 55: 9

My wanderings you have counted; my tears are stored in your flask; are they not recorded in your book?

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This is a psalm directed to God by someone who is in great need, enduring much suffering and persecution. I wanted to point out to you this one line, which shows the psalmist's great insight into God.

The psalmist knows that God is aware of the precise amount of his suffering, and he describes it with the beautiful image of God storing every tear that the sufferer has shed in his "flask." Thus, like water in the desert, or like a precious beverage, each tear is known to God and kept by him. This does not mean that God enjoys the suffering, far from it. The psalmist means that God is all knowing, and does not consider even a few tears to be a trivial thing for anyone to suffer. God considers each tear that every human sheds in suffering to be something that must be accounted for.

And this is why the second part of the imagery is when the psalmist wonders if the number of his tears, while in the flask, has not achieved yet God's book. This means the psalmist wonders when God will act, for the imagery of the tears being "recorded in the book" connotes that God will act to redeem the sufferer from his circumstances, and afflict and smite those who have caused him to suffer.

So this one line beautifully describes how God is aware of every tear of a person's suffering, and does not neglect or dismiss human suffering at all. Rather, there will be the time those tears are recorded in God's book, which you can think of as the time when he takes action.