Psalms 56:8

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: [are they] not in thy book?

Ver. 8. Thou tellest my wanderings] Or, thou cipherest up my flittings, and hast them in numerato, ready told up; my vagaries while hunted up and down like a partridge, and hushed out of every bush, so that I have nowhere to settle. St Paul was at the same pass, αστατουμεν, saith he, we have no certain abode, 1 Corinthians 4:11; and so were sundry of the holy martyrs and confessors, who wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, &c., driven from post to pillar, from one country to another, God all the while noting and numbering all their flittings, yea, all their footings, bottling up their tears, booking down their sighs, as here, and Malachi 3:16; see Matthew 10:30. The Septuagint, for my wanderings, or flittings, have my life, ζωην, to teach us, saith one, that our life is but a flitting.

Put thou my tears into thy bottle] Heb. my tear, that is, every tear of mine; let not one of them be lost, but kept safe with thee, as so much sweet water. It is a witty observation of one, that God is said in Scripture to have a bag and a bottle, a bag for our sins, a bottle for our tears; and that we should help to fill this as we have that. There is an allusion here in the original that cannot be translated into English.

Are they not in thy book?] sc. Of providence; where they cannot be blotted out by any time or tyrants.