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teÌ„rz (דּמעה, dim‛aÌ„h; δαÌκÏυα, daÌkrua): In the instances recorded in Scripture weeping is more frequently associated with mental distress than with physical pain. Eastern peoples show none of the restraint of emotion in lamentation which is characteristic of modern Occidentals, and there are many records of this manifestation of woe, even among men accustomed to hardships and warfare, such as David and his soldiers. The flow of tears is the evidence of sorrow in prospect of approaching death in ; ; , and of the suffering consequent on oppression (), or defeat in battle (), or hopeless remorse, as with Esau (, probably referring to ). The Psalmist describes his condition of distress metaphorically as feeding on the bread of tears and having tears to drink (; ). Tears in the figurative sense of anxiety for the future are referred to in ; the King James Version, and the tears accompanying penitence in (44 the Revised Version margin). Jeremiah is sometimes called the “weeping prophet†on account of his expressive hyperbole in , (see also ; ; ; , and ten other passages). Conversely the deliverance from grief or anxiety is described as the wiping away of tears (; ; ; ).
The expression in in which the Psalmist desires that God should remember his wanderings and his tears has given rise to a curious mistake. There is a paronomasia in the passage as he pleads that God should record his wanderings (Hebrew, nōdh) and that his tears should be put into God's nō'dh (receptacle or bottle). Nō'dh literally means a leathern or skin bottle, as is evident from and -13. The request is obviously figurative, as there is no evidence that there was even a symbolical collection of tears into a bottle in any Semitic funeral ritual, and there is no foundation whatever for the modern identification of the long, narrow perfume jars so frequently found in late Jewish and Greek-Jewish graves, as “lachrymatories†or tear bottles. See BOTTLE.