The psalmist describes his plight. The first two lines of verse 3 are parallel: has pursued me (literally “pursued my nefesh”) and has crushed my life. In verse 3b crushed … to the ground is a figure of complete defeat (see similar language in 7.5). It is possible, as Anderson and others think, that the enemy is a collective term for the psalmist’s enemies (see the plural in verse 9).

The last half of verse 3 is the same as Lamentations 3.6. The darkness (literally “dark places”; see 88.6, 18) may be understood literally to mean a gloomy dungeon, or else figuratively, meaning disaster, calamity. It is probable that the word deliberately alludes to the dark underworld, Sheol, and that the psalmist is saying that he is as good as dead (see use of similar language in 88.4-6). The expression like those long dead is an emphatic way of stressing the psalmist’s hopelessness; there is no life, no vitality, no hope in him. The dead in Sheol dwelt in darkness and eventually lost all spark of life which they might have had at the beginning of their stay in the world of the dead. Biblia Dios Habla Hoy translates “they force me to live in darkness, like those who died long ago.” Made me sit in darkness or Good News Translation has “numbed with horror,” New Jerusalem Bible “numb with fear,” New English Bible “dazed with despair.” The verb means to be stupefied, desolated, disconsolate; in the expressive American idiom, “to be wiped out” (see its use in 40.15a; “laid waste” in 79.7b).

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 .