Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 35:16

"Like the profane mockers in feasts, They gnashed upon me with their teeth." — Psalms 35:16 (ASV)

With hypocritical mockers in feasts. —This clause is full of difficulty. The Septuagint and Vulgate render it as: “they tempted me, they mocked me with a mocking.” Symmachus translates it as: “in hypocrisy, with feigned words.” The Chaldee offers: “with derisive words of flattery.”

All these versions understand the word translated as “feasts” in the Authorized Version to be a cognate of a word in Isaiah 28:11 (which is translated there as “stammering,” but which means, rather, “barbarisms”). The word translated as “hypocritical” more properly means “profane” or “impious.”

Using these meanings, we arrive at a very good sense for the clause: in the manner of profane barbaric barbarisms, or with profanity and barbarism. This interpretation has evident reference to the malicious attacks of foreigners, or of the anti-national party that affected foreign ways.

Regarding the translation “feasts,” this interpretation arises from treating the word as the same one used for a “cake” (1 Kings 17:13). “Cake-mockers” are then explained to be parasites who linger around the tables of the rich, obtaining their dinner in return for their buffooneries. (Compare the Greek ψωμοκόλακεις; Latin, bucellarii.)