Psalm 56 · a question people ask

"Aren’t they in your book?" (56:8). What is God's book?

In the text

Psalm 56 asks the question about what it has just named, the psalmist's wanderings and tears, and doesn't explain the book. Its word, sifrah, comes nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible (tap book). Other verses speak of a book of God with the common word sefer, and they don't all speak of the same thing. Moses said, "please blot me out of your book which you have written" (Exodus 32:32), and the LORD answered, "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book" (Exodus 32:33). A psalm speaks of "the book of life" (Psalm 69:28), another of days: "In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me" (Psalm 139:16), and Malachi of "a book of memory" written "for those who feared the LORD" (Malachi 3:16). Psalm 56 doesn't say which of these, if any, it means, and these notes don't choose. What it does say, just before, is "You count my wanderings" (56:8).

The verses

“You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?”
Psalm 56:8 · World English Bible
“Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.” The LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book.”
Exodus 32:32-33 · World English Bible
“Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous.”
Psalm 69:28 · World English Bible
“Your 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.”
Psalm 139:16 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 56

Psalm 56: What can man do to me?

The refrain comes back changed: "What can flesh do to me?" (56:4) becomes "What can man do to me?" (56:11), and the second time a line is added, "In the LORD, I will praise his word" (56:10), the only time the psalm says the LORD. And in "You count my wanderings… Aren’t they in your book?" (56:8), Strong's gives book as from the verb count.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions