Brought Before the Judges He Is Questioned About Crimes Of Which He Knows Nothing, And That By Those To Whom He Had Shown Nothing But Kindness Who Are Now Determined To Bring Him Down (Psalms 35:11-16).
The scene now changes to the court room. He is asked questions about crimes of which he knows nothing, and that in the face of hostile and false witnesses. And the very men who are doing it are those for whom in the past he has shown great concern. They are rewarding him evil for good.
‘Unrighteous witnesses rise up,
They ask me of things that I know not.
They reward me evil for good,
To the bereaving of my soul.'
Brought before the court he finds that many false witnesses are called who testify of him having done things of which he was totally unaware. They were falsifying evidence and seeking to blacken his name. This was by men to whom he had shown nothing but kindness, and yet they were now seeking to make him bereft of soul. It is not an uncommon experience of the righteous. It would later happen to the Lord, Jesus Christ Himself. For it is the way of sinful man to hate goodness even while praising it.
‘But as for me, when they were sick,
My clothing was sackcloth,
I afflicted my soul with fasting,
And my prayer returned into my own bosom.
I behaved myself
As though it had been my friend or my brother,
I bowed down mourning,
As one who bewails his mother.'
He describes the kindness that he had shown to these men when they had been in trouble. When they were sick he had dressed himself in sackcloth, a sign of mourning and self-affliction in order to show his humility. He had afflicted his soul by going without food. Compare Jeremiah 18:20, ‘Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away the anger from them'.
Indeed his prayers for them had been as passionate as if they had been members of his own family or his close companions. He had mourned over their needs with the same intensity as he would have mourned the loss of his mother.
‘My prayer returned into my own bosom.' This could be read as meaning that by praying for others he himself was blessed as well, and that is certainly always true when we pray, but in context it more likely means that his prayer was as intense as if he was praying for his own loved ones, those of his bosom.
‘But in my adversity (‘my limping') they rejoiced,
And gathered themselves together,
The abjects (or ‘smiters') gathered themselves together against me,
And I knew it not, (or ‘those whom I did not know'),
They did tear me,
And ceased not,
Like the profane mockers in feasts,
They gnashed upon me with their teeth.'
And what recompense did he now receive for the love that he had shown to them? Instead of having compassion for him they rejoiced in the difficult situation in which he found himself. They delighted that he was as one lame, limping along. Indeed they gathered together to oppose him, and not only did so, but also gathered together the ‘abjects', the lowest level of society, against him. It was partly from among these that the false witnesses would come. And this had taken him completely by surprise. They were people whom he neither knew nor recognised. Some would translate as ‘the smiters' (the word is a rare one), signifying those who smote him and his reputation with their words. Either way the idea is similar. His reputation was being torn to shreds. Compare Jeremiah 18:18.
‘They tore me and did not stop.' He had had to endure a constant barrage of lies and accusations, a barrage that went on and on. They had rent him as though they were beasts of prey (compare Hosea 13:8), and they had done it unceasingly.
Once again we are reminded of our Lord, Jesus Christ who suffered such contradiction of sinners against Himself. He too faced false accusations, and the antagonism of those who should have been His friends, and face it unflinchingly.
‘Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.' This appears to have in mind the buffoons who would be rewarded for their antics at feasts by being offered food which they would immediately hungrily devour. In the same way these who opposed him were like buffoons sought hungrily to eat him up.