Whose object of ridicule has the writer become?

The writer declares that he is the object of ridicule by his fellow citizens.

Some Hebrew manuscripts and the old Syrian translation—as is the case with the English Standard Version—have the plural, all peoples, instead of the singular with the possessive pronoun, all my people. Many interpreters take the former to be the correct reading, and then offer it as evidence for the view that the complaining subject in this song is Israel. However, there is no sufficient reason to accept this deviant reading. An individual person is speaking here, and he suffered from the ridicule of his own people. The text is clear on this. This complaint about the ridicule of one’s own people is found more than once in the Old Testament. It is evident from Job (Job 12:4; Job 30:9), the prophet (Jeremiah 20:7), and in numerous Psalms (Psalm 42:11; Psalm 69:13; Psalm 109:25; Psalm 119:51; Psalm 123:4).¹ Although Jerusalem or Israel had become the laughingstock of other nations (see Lamentations 1:21; Lamentations 2:15), this verse describes an individual who is the object of ridicule among his own people (see also Jeremiah 20:8). This intensifies his suffering.²

With this difficulty, the Hebrew text may be taken as a scoffing of the writer’s continued faith in God. Because he ascribed all that has come upon him to divine activity, he was ridiculed by his own people, who should have known better. Because of their false beliefs, they initially did not acknowledge God’s sovereign hand in their misery. Their reaction of ridicule toward the speaker intensified his feeling of rejection—not only by God, but also by his kinsmen.³