Psalms 35:16

With hypocritical mockers in feasts. — This clause is full of difficulty. The LXX. and Vulg. have, “they tempted me, they mocked me with a mocking”; Symmachus, “in hypocrisy, with feigned words”; Chaldee, “with derisive words of flattery.” All these take the word rendered in the Authorised Version, “feasts,” as a cognate of a word in Isaiah 28:11, translated “stammering,” but which means rather, “barbarisms.” (Comp. Isaiah 33:19.) The word rendered “hypocritical” more properly means “profane” or “impious.” With these meanings we get a very good sense (with evident reference to the malicious attacks of foreigners, or of the anti-national party that affected foreign ways) in the manner of profane barbaric barbarisms, or with profanity and barbarism.

As to the rendering “feasts,” it comes from treating the word as the same used (1 Kings 17:13) for a “cake.” “Cake-mockers” are explained to be parasites who hang about the tables of the rich, getting their dinner in return for their buffooneries. (Comp. the Greek ψωμοκόλακεις; Latin, bucellarii.)