What Does Psalm 35:16 Mean?
Like the defiled mockers at feasts, they grind their teeth at me.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.THE KEY
The verse turns ridicule into a physical image: the mocking mouth becomes teeth grinding against its target.
THE MEANING
When you become the target of a crowd’s contempt, this verse names the shift from mockery to menace: the mouth that derides becomes teeth that grind against you. It gives that hostility a bodily image, rather than treating it as harmless talk.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that mockery is harmless because it is only speech; here, the mocking mouth is already pictured as a weapon.
THE ROOT
שִׁנֵּימוֹ
shinnēmô
GROWS FROM
שׁנן
To sharpen or whet.
The word for teeth is linked to sharpening, so the image carries more than open mouths in contempt: it suggests a sharpened edge turned toward you. The same root describes words being diligently taught, joining the mouth’s capacity to injure with its capacity to shape.
ALSO GROWS
shen: Tooth.
שֵׁן
The tooth itself carries the root’s image of sharpness, giving the gnashed teeth their cutting force.
shinnantam: Teach diligently; literally, sharpen them (Deuteronomy 6:7).
וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם
The same sharpened quality can shape words passed on, while here it appears as a threat.
לַעֲגֵי
laʿagei
GROWS FROM
לעג
To mock or deride; the word family also describes stammering or unclear speech.
“mockers” in this verse is laʿagei. The root keeps attention on speech: these are people whose words make another person an object of scorn. Its range also reaches speech heard as broken or unclear, linking the mocker’s voice with humiliation rather than simple disagreement.
ALSO GROWS
laʿag: To mock or deride.
לָעַג
This is the action named directly in the verse: speech used to make its target small.
laʿagei safah: Stammering lips (Isaiah 28:11).
לַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה
The related phrase keeps the root’s attention on speech and how it can mark or unsettle the hearer.
THE PATTERN
A crowd’s contempt can turn another person’s suffering into a public spectacle.
They have gaped their mouths wide against me. They have struck my cheek in scorn. They have gathered together against me.All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.Those passing by spoke evil against him, shaking their heads.THE THREAD
And you shall sharpen them to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.The word translated “teach them diligently” comes from shanan, “to sharpen,” the same root associated with shen, “tooth.” Here sharpness forms words carried through daily life; in Psalm 35:16, that image turns toward hostile teeth.
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