Psalms 35:16

With hypocritical mockers in feasts - The word rendered hypocritical here - חנף chânêph - properly means people “profane, impious, abandoned.” It refers to such persons as are commonly found in scenes of revelry. The words rendered “mockers at feasts,” it is scarcely possible to render literally. The word translated, “mockers,” - לעג lâ‛êg - means properly one who stammers, or who speaks a foreign language; then, a jester, mocker, buffoon. The word rendered “feasts” - מעוג mâ‛ôg - means “a cake of bread;” and the whole phrase would denote “cake-jesters;” “table-buffoons” - those, perhaps, who act the part of jesters at the tables of the rich for the sake of good eating. “Gesenius.” - The meaning is, that he was exposed to the ribaldry or jesting of that low class of people; that those with whom he had formerly been on friendly terms, and whom he had admitted to his own table, and for whom he had wept in their troubles, now drew around themselves that low and common class of parasites and buffoons for the purpose of ridiculing or deriding him.

They gnashed upon me with their teeth - The act of gnashing with the teeth is expressive of anger or wrath. See the notes at Job 16:9; compare Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42, Matthew 13:50; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30; Luke 13:28. The meaning here is that they connected the expressions of auger or wrath with those of derision and scorn. The one is commonly not far from the other.