Continuing the description of his plight, the psalmist relates how his enemies, hypocrites all, come to see him. But they are really not concerned about him; their pious statements of sympathy and concern are false. All they want to do is find out bad news about him and then leave and spread it everywhere (verse 6).
Empty words seems to mean that their apparent care for the psalmist is false, and what they say does not come from a genuine concern for his welfare. New Jerusalem Bible translates “their talk is hollow.” Utter empty words may sometimes be rendered as “talk without good words” or “talk foolish words.” The Good News Translation expression “not sincere” can sometimes be translated positively as “double-hearted people” or “people with two tongues.”
Line b his heart gathers is a bit strange. Some (see Anderson) take “his heart” with the preceding words, “his heart speaks hypocrisy.” “Heart” has a variety of meanings; it can denote feeling or thinking, the interior character (as contrasted with the exterior behavior), or even stand for the whole person (as it seems to here). New Jerusalem Bible translates line b “his mind stores up evil things,” which may be followed; or else Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “they keep in mind all the bad things.” Good News Translation‘s “Gather bad news” must often be recast, since news in many languages is not something which can be said to be gathered. Accordingly one may often translate “they listen for bad news” or “they learn bad news.”
All who hate me is another reference to the psalmist’s enemies.
In verse 7b the meaning may be they imagine the worst for me, or as the Good News Translation footnote has, “they make evil plans to harm me” (so Weiser, Dahood). The Hebrew verb may mean “imagine” or “plan” (see 35.4d, which is quite similar to this passage). Biblia Dios Habla Hoy takes the worst to mean that the enemies make the worst of the psalmist’s situation, “they think I am suffering because of my guilt.” They imagine the worst for me may sometimes be recast as “in their hearts they think up the worst things that can happen to me.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .