The fear of the enemies is compared to that of a woman in labor pains (verse 6). The expression trembling took hold … anguish (Good News Translation “they were seized with fear and anguish”) can be restated “fear and anguish seized them”; more simply, “they became terribly afraid.”

Verse 7 is somewhat difficult to understand; the context requires that it be another simile for the trembling and anguish which overcame Israel’s enemies, but the Masoretic text seems to mean what Revised Standard Version says, “by the east wind you destroyed the ships of Tarshish,” which is a statement of fact, not a simile. This is how Hebrew Old Testament Text Project understands the Masoretic text; its translation is “with the east-wind (you break the ships of Tarsis)” (also An American Translation). But instead of the Masoretic text “by (the east wind),” some late Hebrew manuscripts have “like (the east wind)”; and the Hebrew verb may be pointed to read as a passive, so that the text means “as ships of Tarshish are wrecked by the east wind.” This wording of the text better fits the context than to take it as a statement, as Revised Standard Version does; so the rendering may be “as when an east wind shatters the ships of Tarshish.”

The east wind is taken by Good News Translation to be descriptive of a strong wind, not necessarily of a wind from the east (see Anderson). Tarshish was probably Tartessus, in Spain, and ships of Tarshish may either be ships built in Tarshish or ships sailing to Tarshish; more than likely the phrase here means large, ocean-going ships, with no indication of the place they were sailing to or the place where they had been built (see Bible en français courant, New American Bible footnote).

Care must be taken to make the comparison intelligible in translation. The “fear and anguish” that Israel’s enemies felt was like that of sailors on ships which are being shattered by a furious wind; see Bible en français courant “Trembling seized them there … like the east wind when it tosses large ships.”

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 .