Psalms 35:11,12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

They laid to my charge things I knew not They accused me to Saul of treacherous designs against his crown and life, and of other crimes of which I was wholly innocent and ignorant. They rewarded me evil for good For the good offices which I performed to divers of them when I had favour and power in Saul's court and camp. To the spoiling of my soul That is, to the stripping of my person of all my comforts and hopes, and of my life itself. This interpretation of the passage, the reader will observe, is given according to the present translation. But the Hebrew verbs, יקומו, ישׁאלו, ישׁלמו, jeshallemu, jishalu, jekumu, are all in the future tense, and the clauses are more properly rendered, False witnesses will rise up, &c.; They will lay to my charge, &c.; They will reward me, &c., which seems to intimate that the prophet was speaking of what was then future, and in the person of him against whom false witnesses did arise, to whose charge they laid things he knew not, and whom they rewarded evil for good; “who, because our souls were sick, clothed himself with the sackcloth of our flesh; mourning at the very thought that his prayers, in any measure, should return into his own bosom.” See Fenwick.