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Selected Verse: Psalms 35:11 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
Ps 35:11	Strong Concordance	False [02555] witnesses [05707] did rise up [06965]; they laid to my charge [07592] things that I knew [03045] not.
	King James	False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
False witnesses--literally, "Witnesses of injustice and cruelty" (compare Psa 11:5; Psa 25:19).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

False witnesses--literally, "Witnesses of injustice and cruelty" (compare Psa 11:5; Psa 25:19).

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
False witnesses did rise up - Margin, "witnesses of wrong." The Hebrew is, "witnesses of "violence,"" חמס châmâs. That is, they were persons who, in what they said of me, were guilty of injustice and wrong. Their conduct was injurious to me as an act of "violence" would be. They laid to my charge - Margin, as in Hebrew: "they asked me." The word "asked" here seems to be used in the sense of "demand;" that is, they demanded an "answer" to what was said. The usage appears to have been derived from courts, where the forms of trial may have been in the way of question and answer - the mode of accusation having been in the form of "asking" how a thing was, or whether it was so; and the defense being regarded as an "answer" to such an inquiry. Hence, it is synonymous with our expression of laying to the charge of anyone; or of accusing anyone. Things that I knew not - Of which I had no knowledge; which never came into my mind. What those charges were the psalmist does not specify; but it is not uncommon for a good man to be falsely accused, and we are certain that such things occurred in the life of David.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
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: "bereavement is to my soul," its condition is that of being forsaken by all those who formerly showed me marks of affection; all these have, as it were, died off so far as I am concerned. Not only had David been obliged to save his parents by causing them to flee to Moab, but Michal was also torn from him, Jonathan removed, and all those at the court of Saul, who had hitherto sought the favour and friendship of the highly-gifted and highly-honoured son-in-law of the king, were alienated from him. And how sincerely and sympathisingly had he reciprocated their leanings towards himself! By ואני in Psa 35:13, he contrasts himself with the ungrateful and unfeeling ones. Instead of לבשׁתּי שׁק, the expression is לבוּשׁי שׁק; the tendency of poetry for the use of the substantival clause is closely allied to its fondness for well-conceived brevity and pictorial definition. He manifested towards them a love which knew no distinction between the ego and tu, which regarded their sorrow and their guilt as his own, and joined with them in their expiation for it; his head was lowered upon his breast, or he cowered, like Elijah (Kg1 18:42), upon the ground with his head hanging down upon his breast even to his knees, so that that which came forth from the inmost depths of his nature returned again as it were in broken accents into his bosom. Riehm's rendering, "at their ungodliness and hostility my prayer for things not executed came back," is contrary to the connection, and makes one look for אלי instead of אל־חיקי. Perret-Gentil correctly renders it, Je priai la tte penche sur la poitrine. The Psalmist goes on to say in Psa 35:14, I went about as for a friend, for a brother to me, i.e., as if the sufferer had been such to me. With התחלּך, used of the solemn slowness of gait, which corresponds to the sacredness of pain, alternates שׁחח used of the being bowed down very low, in which the heavy weight of pain finds expression. כּאבל־אם, not: like the mourning (from אבל, like הבל from הבל) of a mother (Hitzig), but, since a personal אבל is more natural, and next to the mourning for an only child the loss of a mother (cf. Gen 24:67) strikes the deepest wound: like one who mourns (אבל־, (Note: According to the old Babylonian reading (belonging to a period when Pathach and Segol were as yet not distinguished from one another), כּאבל (with the sign of Pathach and the stroke for Raphe below = ); vid., Pinsker, Zur Geschichte des Karaismus, S. 141, and Einleitung, S. 118.) like לבן־, Gen 49:12, from אבל, construct state, like טמא) for a mother (the objective genitive, as in Gen 27:41; Deu 34:8; Amo 8:10; Jer 6:26). קדר signifies the colours, outward appearance, and attire of mourning: with dark clothes, with tearful unwashed face, and with neglected beard. But as for them - how do they act at the present time, when he finds himself in צלע (Psa 38:17; Job 18:12), a sideway direction, i.e., likely to fall (from צלע, Arab. ḍl‛, to incline towards the side)? They rejoice and gather themselves together, and this assemblage of ungrateful friends rejoicing over another's misfortune, is augmented by the lowest rabble that attach themselves to them. The verb נכה means to smite; Niph. נכּא, Job 30:6, to be driven forth with a whip, after which the lxx renders it μάστιγες, Symm. πλῆκται, and the Targum conterentes me verbis suis; cf. הכּה בּלשׂון, Jer 18:18. But נכים cannot by itself mean smiters with the tongue. The adjective נכה signifies elsewhere with רגלים, one who is smitten in the feet, i.e., one who limps or halts, and with רוּח, but also without any addition, in Isa 16:7, one smitten in spirit, i.e., one deeply troubled or sorrowful. Thus, therefore, נכים from נכה, like גּאים from גּאה, may mean smitten, men, i.e., men who are brought low or reduced (Hengstenberg). It might also, after the Arabic nawika, to be injured in mind, anwak, stupid, silly (from the same root נך, to prick, smite, wound, cf. ichtalla, to be pierced through = mad), be understood as those mentally deranged, enraged at nothing or without cause. But the former definition of the notion of the word is favoured by the continuation of the idea of the verbal adjective נכים by ולא ידעתּי, persons of whom I have hitherto taken no notice because they were far removed from me, i.e., men belonging to the dregs of the people (cf. Job 19:18; Job 30:1). The addition of ולא ידעתי certainly makes Olshausen's conjecture that we should read נכרים somewhat natural; but the expression then becomes tautological, and there are other instances also in which psalm-poesy goes beyond the ordinary range of words, in order to find language to describe that which is loathsome, in the most glaring way. פרע, to tear, rend in pieces, viz., with abusive and slanderous words (like Arab. qr‛ II) also does not occur anywhere else. And what remarkable language we now meet with in Psa 35:16! מעוג does not mean scorn or buffoonery, as Bttcher and Hitzig imagine, (Note: The Talmudic עגה (לשׁון), B. Sanhedrin 101b, which is said to mean "a jesting way of speaking," has all the less place here, as the reading wavers between עגה (עגא) and אגא.) but according to Kg1 17:12, a cake of a round formation (like the Talmudic עגּה, a circle); לעג, jeering, jesting. Therefore לעגי מעוג means: mockers for a cake, i.e., those who for a delicate morsel, for the sake of dainty fare, make scornful jokes, viz., about me, the persecuted one, vile parasites; German Tellerlecker, Bratenriecher, Greek κνισσοκόλακες, ψωμοκόλακες, Mediaeval Latin buccellarii. This לעגי מלוג, which even Rashi interprets in substantially the same manner, stands either in a logical co-ordinate relation (vid., on Isa 19:11) or in a logical as well as grammatical subordinate relation to its regens חנפי. In the former case, it would be equivalent to: the profane, viz., the cake-jesters; in the latter, which is the more natural, and quite suitable: the profane (= the profanest, vid., Psa 45:13; Isa 29:19; Eze 7:24) among cake-jesters. The בּ is not the Beth of companionship or fellowship, to express which עם or את (Hos 7:5) would have been used, but Beth essentiae or the Beth of characterisation: in the character of the most abject examples of this class of men do they gnash upon him with their teeth. The gerund חרק (of the noise of the teeth being pressed together, like Arab. ḥrq, of the crackling of a fire and the grating of a file), which is used according to Ges. 131, 4, b, carries its subject in itself. They gnash upon him with their teeth after the manner of the profanest among those, by whom their neighbour's honour is sold for a delicate morsel.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

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: "bereavement is to my soul," its condition is that of being forsaken by all those who formerly showed me marks of affection; all these have, as it were, died off so far as I am concerned. Not only had David been obliged to save his parents by causing them to flee to Moab, but Michal was also torn from him, Jonathan removed, and all those at the court of Saul, who had hitherto sought the favour and friendship of the highly-gifted and highly-honoured son-in-law of the king, were alienated from him. And how sincerely and sympathisingly had he reciprocated their leanings towards himself! By ואני in Psa 35:13, he contrasts himself with the ungrateful and unfeeling ones. Instead of לבשׁתּי שׁק, the expression is לבוּשׁי שׁק; the tendency of poetry for the use of the substantival clause is closely allied to its fondness for well-conceived brevity and pictorial definition. He manifested towards them a love which knew no distinction between the ego and tu, which regarded their sorrow and their guilt as his own, and joined with them in their expiation for it; his head was lowered upon his breast, or he cowered, like Elijah (Kg1 18:42), upon the ground with his head hanging down upon his breast even to his knees, so that that which came forth from the inmost depths of his nature returned again as it were in broken accents into his bosom. Riehm's rendering, "at their ungodliness and hostility my prayer for things not executed came back," is contrary to the connection, and makes one look for אלי instead of אל־חיקי. Perret-Gentil correctly renders it, Je priai la tte penche sur la poitrine.

The Psalmist goes on to say in Psa 35:14, I went about as for a friend, for a brother to me, i.e., as if the sufferer had been such to me. With התחלּך, used of the solemn slowness of gait, which corresponds to the sacredness of pain, alternates שׁחח used of the being bowed down very low, in which the heavy weight of pain finds expression. כּאבל־אם, not: like the mourning (from אבל, like הבל from הבל) of a mother (Hitzig), but, since a personal אבל is more natural, and next to the mourning for an only child the loss of a mother (cf. Gen 24:67) strikes the deepest wound: like one who mourns (אבל־,

(Note: According to the old Babylonian reading (belonging to a period when Pathach and Segol were as yet not distinguished from one another), כּאבל (with the sign of Pathach and the stroke for Raphe below = ); vid., Pinsker, Zur Geschichte des Karaismus, S. 141, and Einleitung, S. 118.)

like לבן־, Gen 49:12, from אבל, construct state, like טמא) for a mother (the objective genitive, as in Gen 27:41; Deu 34:8; Amo 8:10; Jer 6:26). קדר signifies the colours, outward appearance, and attire of mourning: with dark clothes, with tearful unwashed face, and with neglected beard. But as for them - how do they act at the present time, when he finds himself in צלע (Psa 38:17; Job 18:12), a sideway direction, i.e., likely to fall (from צלע, Arab. ḍl‛, to incline towards the side)? They rejoice and gather themselves together, and this assemblage of ungrateful friends rejoicing over another's misfortune, is augmented by the lowest rabble that attach themselves to them. The verb נכה means to smite; Niph. נכּא, Job 30:6, to be driven forth with a whip, after which the lxx renders it μάστιγες, Symm. πλῆκται, and the Targum conterentes me verbis suis; cf. הכּה בּלשׂון, Jer 18:18. But נכים cannot by itself mean smiters with the tongue. The adjective נכה signifies elsewhere with רגלים, one who is smitten in the feet, i.e., one who limps or halts, and with רוּח, but also without any addition, in Isa 16:7, one smitten in spirit, i.e., one deeply troubled or sorrowful. Thus, therefore, נכים from נכה, like גּאים from גּאה, may mean smitten, men, i.e., men who are brought low or reduced (Hengstenberg). It might also, after the Arabic nawika, to be injured in mind, anwak, stupid, silly (from the same root נך, to prick, smite, wound, cf. ichtalla, to be pierced through = mad), be understood as those mentally deranged, enraged at nothing or without cause. But the former definition of the notion of the word is favoured by the continuation of the idea of the verbal adjective נכים by ולא ידעתּי, persons of whom I have hitherto taken no notice because they were far removed from me, i.e., men belonging to the dregs of the people (cf. Job 19:18; Job 30:1). The addition of ולא ידעתי certainly makes Olshausen's conjecture that we should read נכרים somewhat natural; but the expression then becomes tautological, and there are other instances also in which psalm-poesy goes beyond the ordinary range of words, in order to find language to describe that which is loathsome, in the most glaring way. פרע, to tear, rend in pieces, viz., with abusive and slanderous words (like Arab. qr‛ II) also does not occur anywhere else.

And what remarkable language we now meet with in Psa 35:16! מעוג does not mean scorn or buffoonery, as Bttcher and Hitzig imagine,

(Note: The Talmudic עגה (לשׁון), B. Sanhedrin 101b, which is said to mean "a jesting way of speaking," has all the less place here, as the reading wavers between עגה (עגא) and אגא.)

but according to Kg1 17:12, a cake of a round formation (like the Talmudic עגּה, a circle); לעג, jeering, jesting. Therefore לעגי מעוג means: mockers for a cake, i.e., those who for a delicate morsel, for the sake of dainty fare, make scornful jokes, viz., about me, the persecuted one, vile parasites; German Tellerlecker, Bratenriecher, Greek κνισσοκόλακες, ψωμοκόλακες, Mediaeval Latin buccellarii. This לעגי מלוג, which even Rashi interprets in substantially the same manner, stands either in a logical co-ordinate relation (vid., on Isa 19:11) or in a logical as well as grammatical subordinate relation to its regens חנפי. In the former case, it would be equivalent to: the profane, viz., the cake-jesters; in the latter, which is the more natural, and quite suitable: the profane (= the profanest, vid., Psa 45:13; Isa 29:19; Eze 7:24) among cake-jesters. The בּ is not the Beth of companionship or fellowship, to express which עם or את (Hos 7:5) would have been used, but Beth essentiae or the Beth of characterisation: in the character of the most abject examples of this class of men do they gnash upon him with their teeth. The gerund חרק (of the noise of the teeth being pressed together, like Arab. ḥrq, of the crackling of a fire and the grating of a file), which is used according to Ges. 131, 4, b, carries its subject in itself. They gnash upon him with their teeth after the manner of the profanest among those, by whom their neighbour's honour is sold for a delicate morsel.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
False witnesses did rise up - There is no doubt that several of this kind were found to depose against the life of David; and we know that the wicked Jews employed such against the life of Christ. See Mat 26:59, Mat 26:60. They laid to my charge things that I knew not - They produced the most unfounded charges; things of which I had never before heard.

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¹⁹ Consider [07200] mine enemies [0341]; for they are many [07231]; and they hate [08130] me with cruel [02555] hatred [08135].

⁵ The LORD [03068] trieth [0974] the righteous [06662]: but the wicked [07563] and him that loveth [0157] violence [02555] his soul [05315] hateth [08130].

⁵ In the day [03117] of our king [04428] the princes [08269] have made him sick [02470] with bottles [02534] of wine [03196]; he stretched out [04900] his hand [03027] with scorners [03945].

²⁴ Wherefore I will bring [0935] the worst [07451] of the heathen [01471], and they shall possess [03423] their houses [01004]: I will also make the pomp [01347] of the strong [05794] to cease [07673]; and their holy places [06942] shall be defiled [02490] [05157].

¹⁹ The meek [06035] also shall increase [03254] their joy [08057] in the LORD [03068], and the poor [034] among men [0120] shall rejoice [01523] in the Holy One [06918] of Israel [03478].

¹³ The king's [04428] daughter [01323] is all glorious [03520] within [06441]: her clothing [03830] is of wrought [04865] gold [02091].

¹¹ Surely the princes [08269] of Zoan [06814] are fools [0191], the counsel [06098] of the wise [02450] counsellors [03289] of Pharaoh [06547] is become brutish [01197]: how say [0559] ye unto Pharaoh [06547], I am the son [01121] of the wise [02450], the son [01121] of ancient [06924] kings [04428]?

¹² And she said [0559], As the LORD [03068] thy God [0430] liveth [02416], I have [03426] not a cake [04580], but an handful [04393] [03709] of meal [07058] in a barrel [03537], and a little [04592] oil [08081] in a cruse [06835]: and, behold, I am gathering [07197] two [08147] sticks [06086], that I may go in [0935] and dress [06213] it for me and my son [01121], that we may eat [0398] it, and die [04191].

¹⁶ With hypocritical [02611] mockers [03934] in feasts [04580], they gnashed [02786] upon me with their teeth [08127].

¹ But now they that are younger [06810] [03117] than I have me in derision [07832], whose fathers [01] I would have disdained [03988] to have set [07896] with the dogs [03611] of my flock [06629].

¹⁸ Yea, young children [05759] despised [03988] me; I arose [06965], and they spake [01696] against me.

⁷ Therefore shall Moab [04124] howl [03213] for Moab [04124], every one shall howl [03213]: for the foundations [0808] of Kirhareseth [07025] shall ye mourn [01897]; surely they are stricken [05218].

¹⁸ Then said [0559] they, Come [03212], and let us devise [02803] devices [04284] against Jeremiah [03414]; for the law [08451] shall not perish [06] from the priest [03548], nor counsel [06098] from the wise [02450], nor the word [01697] from the prophet [05030]. Come [03212], and let us smite [05221] him with the tongue [03956], and let us not give heed [07181] to any of his words [01697].

⁶ To dwell [07931] in the clifts [06178] of the valleys [05158], in caves [02356] of the earth [06083], and in the rocks [03710].

¹² His strength [0202] shall be hungerbitten [07457], and destruction [0343] shall be ready [03559] at his side [06763].

¹⁷ For I am ready [03559] to halt [06761], and my sorrow [04341] is continually [08548] before me.

²⁶ O daughter [01323] of my people [05971], gird [02296] thee with sackcloth [08242], and wallow [06428] thyself in ashes [0665]: make [06213] thee mourning [060], as for an only son [03173], most bitter [08563] lamentation [04553]: for the spoiler [07703] shall suddenly [06597] come [0935] upon us.

¹⁰ And I will turn [02015] your feasts [02282] into mourning [060], and all your songs [07892] into lamentation [07015]; and I will bring up [05927] sackcloth [08242] upon all loins [04975], and baldness [07144] upon every head [07218]; and I will make [07760] it as the mourning [060] of an only [03173] son, and the end [0319] thereof as a bitter [04751] day [03117].

⁸ And the children [01121] of Israel [03478] wept [01058] for Moses [04872] in the plains [06160] of Moab [04124] thirty [07970] days [03117]: so the days [03117] of weeping [01065] and mourning [060] for Moses [04872] were ended [08552].

⁴¹ And Esau [06215] hated [07852] Jacob [03290] because [05921] of the blessing [01293] wherewith [0834] his father [01] blessed him [01288]: and Esau [06215] said [0559] in his heart [03820], The days [03117] of mourning [060] for my father [01] are at hand [07126]; then will I slay [02026] my brother [0251] Jacob [03290].

¹² His eyes [05869] shall be red [02447] with wine [03196], and his teeth [08127] white [03836] with milk [02461].

⁶⁷ And Isaac [03327] brought her [0935] into his mother [0517] Sarah's [08283] tent [0168], and took [03947] Rebekah [07259], and she became his wife [0802]; and he loved [0157] her: and Isaac [03327] was comforted [05162] after [0310] his mother's [0517] death.

¹⁴ I behaved [01980] myself as though he had been my friend [07453] or brother [0251]: I bowed down [07817] heavily [06937], as one that mourneth [057] for his mother [0517].

⁴² So Ahab [0256] went up [05927] to eat [0398] and to drink [08354]. And Elijah [0452] went up [05927] to the top [07218] of Carmel [03760]; and he cast himself down [01457] upon the earth [0776], and put [07760] his face [06440] between his knees [01290],

¹³ But as for me, when they were sick [02470], my clothing [03830] was sackcloth [08242]: I humbled [06031] my soul [05315] with fasting [06685]; and my prayer [08605] returned [07725] into mine own bosom [02436].

¹⁸ And thou hast shewed [05046] this day [03117] how that thou hast dealt [06213] well [02896] with me: forasmuch as when the LORD [03068] had delivered [05462] me into thine hand [03027], thou killedst [02026] me not.

¹² They rewarded [07999] me evil [07451] for good [02896] to the spoiling [07908] of my soul [05315].

⁵ O God [0430], thou knowest [03045] my foolishness [0200]; and my sins [0819] are not hid [03582] from thee.

¹² They rewarded [07999] me evil [07451] for good [02896] to the spoiling [07908] of my soul [05315].

¹¹ False [02555] witnesses [05707] did rise up [06965]; they laid to my charge [07592] things that I knew [03045] not.

⁶⁰ But [2532] found [2147] none [3756]: yea [2532], though many [4183] false witnesses [5575] came [4334], yet found they [2147] none [3756]. [1161] At the last [5305] came [4334] two [1417] false witnesses [5575],

⁵⁹ Now [1161] the chief priests [749], and [2532] elders [4245], and [2532] all [3650] the council [4892], sought [2212] false witness [5577] against [2596] Jesus [2424], to [3704] put [2289] him [846] to death [2289];