a buffoon · noun, common masculine plural construct
feasts
מָע֑וֹגma.'og
H4580
a cake of bread · noun, common masculine singular absolute
gnashed
חָרֹ֖קcha.Rok
H2786
to grate the teeth · verb, qal infinitive absolute
teeth
שִׁנֵּֽימוֹshi.Nei.mov
H8127
a tooth (as sharp) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Lamentations 2:16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is…
Job 16:9 He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
Psalms 37:12 The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
John 18:28 Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest the…
Acts 7:54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
1 Samuel 20:24-42 So David hid himself in the field: and when the new moon was come, the king sat him down to eat meat.
Isaiah 1:14-15 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
1 Corinthians 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sin…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 35:11-16
Two very wicked things David here lays to the charge of his enemies, to make good his appeal to God against them - perjury and ingratitude.
I. Perjury, Psa 35:11. When Saul would have David attainted of treason, in order to his being outlawed, perhaps he did it with the formalities of a legal prosecution, produced witnesses who swore some treasonable words or overt acts against him, and he being not present to clear himself (or, if he was, it was all the same), Saul adjudged him a traitor. This he complains of here as the highest piece of injustice imaginable: False witnesses did rise up, who would swear anything; they laid to my charge things that I knew not, nor ever thought of. See how mu…
mockers--who were hired to make sport at feasts (Pro 28:21).
John Gill on Psalms 35:16
With hypocritical mockers in feasts,.... That is, the abjects gathered, themselves together with such; these may design Saul's courtiers, his parasites and flatterers, and who were hypocrites in religion also, and made it their business at Saul's table, and in their banquetings and revellings, to mock at David; and who were "hypocritical mockers of" or "for a piece of bread" (y), as it may be rendered; the same word is used for a pastry, or cake, and for flatterers; and they used at their feasts to throw a pastry baked with honey to parasites (z), for the word signifies a cake, or a piece of bread, 1 Kings 17:12; and the sense may be, that they mocked at David as wanting a piece of bread, an…
Psalm 35:16-18
16. Among perfidious jesters at feasts, they gnash upon me with their teeth. 17. O Lord! [714] how long wilt thou look on? deliver my soul from their tumults, and my only one [715] from the lions. 18. I will magnify thee in the great congregation: [716] I will praise thee before a great people. [717]
16. Among perfidious jesters. Others translate it, With hypocrites, but in my opinion David simply relates the combination of his enemies. And the meaning of the expression is to this effect, That among men of a crafty disposition, who had been addicted to deceit, and were consequently lost to all sense of shame, the only and the constant subject of their deliberations was, how…
The Church Fathers
Certain ones say the power of the teeth is the evil of speech. He wanted his Father to be a witness against those who blasphemed him.
This is what happens to savages when they are conquered by reason. When words fail them because of the truth, then they gnash their teeth and so communicate their desires by a silent threat. All of this is in the interest of a great act of building up the human race, so that its members may not count it a burden to suffer what they recognize that their own Head has endured.
"They tempted Me, and mocked Me with mocking" [Psalm 35:16]. That is, they derided Me, they insulted Me; this of the Head, this of the Body. Consider, Brethren, the glory of the Church which now is; remember its past dishonours, remember how once were Christians everywhere put to flight, and wherever found, mocked, beaten, slain, exposed to beasts, burned, men rejoicing against them. As it was to the Head, so it is also to the Body. For as it was to the Lord on the Cross, so has it been to His Body in all that persecution which was made but now: nor even now cease the persecutions of the same. Wherever men find a Christian, they are wont to insult, to persecute, to deride him, to call him dull, senseless, of no spirit, of no knowledge. Do they what they will, Christ is in Heaven: do they what they will, He hath honoured His punishment, already hath He fixed His Cross in the foreheads of all; the ungodly is permitted to insult, to rage he is not permitted; but yet from that which the tongue uttereth, is understood what he beareth in his heart: "They gnashed upon Me with their teeth."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Enemy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Friends · .David’s friends were false to David — .David’s friends were false to David
Ingratitude · .David’s companions to David — .David’s companions to David
Malice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Scoffing · .Enemies of David — .Enemies of David
Scorning And Mocking · Exemplified: Enemies of David — Exemplified: Enemies of David
Teeth · Gnashing (grinding) of, usually signifying anger or extreme pain — Gnashing (grinding) of, usually signifying anger or extreme pain
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The second part begins with two strophes of sorrowful description of the wickedness of the enemy. The futures in Psa 35:11, Psa 35:12 describe that which at present takes place. עדי חמס are μάρτυρες ἄδικοι (lxx). They demand from him a confession of acts and things which lie entirely outside his consciousness and his way of acting (cf. Psa 69:5): they would gladly brand him as a perjurer, as an usurper, and as a plunderer. What David complains of in Psa 35:12, we hear Saul confess in Sa1 24:18; the charge of ingratitude is therefore well-grounded. שׁכול לנפשׁי is not dependent on ישׁלּמוּני, in which case one would have looked for כּשׁול rather than שׁכול, but a substantival clause: "bere…
The psalmist’s attackers snarl to express their bitter envy.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 35:16
With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.
"With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth." Like professional buffoons who grin around the banquet to make sport, so they made a business of jeering at the good man; not, however, out of mirth, but from violent, insatiable hatred. Like cake-scoffers, or men who will jeer for a bit of bread, these hireling miscreants persecuted David in order to get a bellyful for themselves from Saul's table: having moreover an inward grudge against the son of Jesse because he was a better man than themselves.
Very forcibly might our Lord have used the words of these verses! Let us not forget to se…
