With verse 4 begins the long body of the psalm in the form of a review of the past, or a flashback recalling God’s great acts in rescuing the psalmist from his enemies. Although there is the occasional verse with static parallelism, the text is made up of parallel lines which enable a movement between lines and between verses so that the great moments of a story unfold. In this sense poetic lines are somewhat narrative without becoming an epic. The translator’s perception of the dynamics of the parallelism will help him to select those devices in his own language which will contribute to the heightening effect or the consequence in the second of two parallel lines.
The parallelism in verses 4 and 5 is not typical. Both the a and b lines of each verse have a metaphor. The more typical structure is for the metaphor to occur in the second line, which is more vivid and intensive. However, 18.4 is a clear case of intensification; in line a the cords of death merely encompass, but in line b they turn into violent action. Good News Translation‘s rendering, which substitutes “danger of death” in line a, intensifies line b with the figure “waves of destruction” and the active verb “rolled over me.” Verse 5 and the first two lines of verse 6, on the other hand, have parallel lines in which the second merely restates the first. There is no heightening of effect, no specification, and no consequence. The poet has simply chosen to introduce the flashback section by piling up images for the sake of emphasizing his threatened existence at some time in the past. With the second couplet in verse 6 begins the predominant structure of movement between parallel lines and between verses.
The phrase The cords of death in verse 4a is not quite synonymous with the torrents of perdition in line b, and some prefer to adopt for line a the text in 2 Samuel 22.5a, “the waves of death” (see New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, Dahood). Cords of death portrays death as a hunter with a net trying to trap people, or with ropes trying to tie them up.
In the four lines of these two verses, death … perdition … Sheol … death are all parallel, all indicating the danger of sudden death, either through sickness, or at the hands of enemies, or in battle. The psalmist thought that death was imminent; he was as good as dead.
It is generally assumed that the word translated perdition is another name for Sheol (for which see comments on 6.5). The dangers that threatened the psalmist with death are likened to cords, torrents, and snares, all of which are metaphors for instruments of capture and destruction.
The four verbs are matched to the metaphors: (1) verse 4a, cords with encompassed, meaning “tie up, bind” (also 2 Sam 22.5; Psa 40.12; 116.3; “closed in” in Jonah 2.5); (2) verse 4b, torrents with assailed, meaning “fall upon, roll over, overwhelm”; some take the verb to mean “terrify”; (3) verse 5a, cords with entangled, meaning “be around,” that is, tie up (see the verb in 17.11); (4) verse 5b, snares with confronted, meaning “to face, to meet” (as in 17.13).
In many languages it is not natural to refer to death as The cords of death; however, other metaphors are often available: trap, snare, pit, and fire. One may sometimes say “the snares of death were around me” or “traps that kill were around me.”
Torrents of perdition may sometimes be substituted by “floods that destroy.”
Cords of Sheol may sometimes be replaced by such figures as “the traps of death catch me” or “the traps which kill take hold of 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 .