Since the present verse division is unlikely to be in accordance with the thought of the poet himself, it is best to take these two verses together.
The imagery of the water is continued in this verse, and the psalmist describes how he was overwhelmed by the sea, in language resembling Psa 18.4 and 69.1. According to King James Version “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul.” Instead of “soul,” New English Bible, Bible in Basic English, Mowinckel, and Jerusalem Bible have “neck,” or “throat,” and Good News Translation understands the Hebrew in the same sense by using the word choked. The Hebrew word nephesh has a variety of meanings in the Old Testament (Peacock 1976). It has the meaning of “throat” in such passages as Isa 5.14; Psa 69.1; 105.18; and Prov 23.7, and that appears to be the meaning here rather than “life” as in New American Bible. From this sense of “throat” may have developed the meaning “breath,” as in Job 41.21. Since “breath” indicates the presence of “life,” the word can also have this latter meaning, as in Prov 7.23; Gen 37.21; and Lam 2.12. Frequently the word merely stands for “person” or “self,” or even a personal pronoun, as in Job 16.4. So there is some justification for Revised Standard Version, “the waters closed in over me,” though the parallel in Psa 69.1 argues for the correctness of New English Bible and Good News Translation here.
It may be wrong in some languages to speak of water as “coming over” a person. A more satisfactory expression may be “the water flooded over me.” On the other hand, it may seem better to say “I sank down into the water.”
A term to render choked should not refer to the choking of a person by some violent squeezing of the throat, but choking as the result of being immersed in a liquid. Choked me must therefore be rendered often as “drowned me” or “took away my breath.”
The “ocean” in the second line (New English Bible) is the word that is used at the beginning of the story of Creation in Gen 1.2, and in the account of the Flood (Gen 7.11; 8.2), in all of which passages New English Bible uses the word “abyss.” In other words, the Flood was a combination of rain falling from above and subterranean springs bursting out from below. It is also the word used, as here and in Hab 3.10, for the deepest parts of the sea.
In Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible, and New English Bible the last line of verse 5 is combined with the first line of verse 6, partly for reasons of the poetic structure of the psalm, and I went down is taken along with the line that follows. The division of the Hebrew text into verses came about at a comparatively late date, so the punctuation need not determine our understanding of the sense. In this sentence the poet continues to intensify the picture of someone who is overwhelmed by the ocean. No longer is his head above water, since seaweed is already smothering him. The word “weeds” is the same as is used in the story of the childhood of Moses (Exo 2.3, 5), and in the name for “the Sea of Reeds” in Exo 10.19, etc. It is used here only in reference to the vegetation at the bottom of the sea, so that this is a more realistic description of being overwhelmed by water than any passage in the Psalms. The closest parallel there is perhaps to be found in Psa 18.5, with its imagery of the victim being entangled in the cords of the underworld.
A literal rendering of seaweed wrapped around my head may seem strange, since it would suggest that the seaweed purposely engaged in a particular action. One may need, therefore, to use some such expression as “there was seaweed wrapped around my head.” A descriptive equivalent of seaweed may be “plants that grow in the sea.”
Good News Translation follows the traditional verse division and takes I went down with the words that precede it, to the very roots of the mountains. However, the prefix is sometimes to be understood as meaning “at” rather than “to”; for example, Num 11.10, “at the door of his tent.” Taken in this way, as in New English Bible, “the troughs of the mountains” would refer to the place where the poet feels himself to be entangled in seaweed. The mountains, such as Carmel, which stand on the seacoast, are pictured here as having their roots far down at the bottom of the sea; compare Psa 46.2. There they lie anchored, beneath the water, at the approaches to the underworld.
The next two lines in New English Bible correspond to the second line of verse 6 in Good News Translation, which interprets “I went down” as repeated from the first line. In other words, the land described here in Good News Translation is in apposition to the very roots of the mountains in the preceding line.
The figurative expression the very roots of the mountains may not be possible in some languages, since only trees may be said to have roots. It may, however, be possible to say “I went down to where the mountains begin” or “I went down into the sea to the place where the mountains begin.” In some languages the base of a mountain may be spoken of as “the belly of the mountain,” or “the skirt of the mountain,” or “the buttocks of the mountain.”
In Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, and Good News Translation the relative pronoun “whose” is supplied, though it is not expressed in the Hebrew. This construction without the relative is perfectly normal in Hebrew, but this particular example has seldom been so understood by other translators, with the exception of Moffatt: “a land where bars shut behind me forever.” The “world” to which New English Bible refers is, of course, the world of the dead. Note that New English Bible differs from Good News Translation here in understanding the statement as applying more particularly to the victim whose thoughts are expressed in the poem “would hold me fast.” In this it follows more closely the Hebrew, which does not speak simply of a place that can never hold the person captive forever. A. R. Johnson is formally closer to the Hebrew with “I went down to the land whose bars were to be about me forever,” since there is no verb such as lock or “hold me fast” (New English Bible), but a preposition, the same as in 2 Kgs 4.12.
By use of a figurative equivalent, Good News Translation speaks of the gates of the underworld as being permanently locked to keep those who are already there inside, but not, of course, to bar the entry of newcomers. This thought of the permanence of one’s stay in Sheol is met with frequently in the Old Testament (for example, 2 Sam 12.23; Job 7.9, 10; 10.21; 17.16; Isa 38.10; and others). New English Bible is closer to the Hebrew in speaking of the “bars” that kept the gates of the underworld effectively closed. King James Version and other translations speak of “bars,” but by failing to understand that this is a reference to the underworld and not to the earth itself, the effect is confusing. Thus An American Translation has “The earth with its bars was against me forever,” whatever that may mean. With greater freedom Knox has “the very bars of earth my unrelenting prison.” New American Bible makes it clear that the reference is to “the bars of the nether world,” but New Jerusalem Bible retains “the bars of the earth,” again with no explanation of the meaning as a reference to the world of the dead. This phrase does not occur anywhere else in the Old Testament, so various emendations of the text have been suggested. Thus Snaith, following the Septuagint and Vulgate, would delete one letter and read “… whose bars are everlasting bolts,” and Jerusalem Bible has “I went down to the countries underneath the earth, to the peoples of the past,” but without an explanation for the changes involved.
As already noted, it is important to indicate clearly that the land whose gates lock shut forever is located, figuratively speaking, at the very roots of the mountains. This appositional relationship may be expressed as “to the very roots of the mountains, that is, to the land whose gates lock shut forever.” It may, however, be rather strange to speak of a land having gates, but one can often speak of “a place whose gates lock shut.” The figurative relationship between land and gates may be made clear for some languages by introducing a kind of simile; for example, “the land that has, as it were, gates.”
Instead of employing an active expression such as gates lock shut, it may be better to indicate a particular state; for example, “whose gates are locked shut.” Such a figurative expression must be expressed in some languages by a type of simile, “whose gates are shut, as it were, by a key,” or “whose gates cannot be opened.”
The second part of verse 6 expresses a strong contrast to what precedes, since the sufferer acknowledges that he has been brought back from the depths alive, in spite of the strongly held belief that there was no return from Sheol. All hope, humanly speaking, was already lost, but the Lord had control even of the gates of Sheol (compare Psa 30.3; Job 38.17), just as in Rev 1.18 the Risen Christ has the keys of Death and the underworld.
The word depths is translated by New English Bible and others as “the pit.” This is one of several expressions used in the Old Testament for the underworld (so Bible in Basic English). In King James Version it is rendered “corruption” (compare Psa 16.10, quoted in Acts 2.27, where Greek uses the same word as the Septuagint). The Hebrew word shachath is related, not to the verb shachath “to destroy,” but to the verb shuach “to smite down.” The word occurs a number of times in Psalms and Job in contexts relating to death, often as a parallel to Sheol. Revised Standard Version is somewhat overliteral in speaking of “the life” of the poet as being brought up from “the Pit,” and New English Bible and Good News Translation make the meaning clearer with the word “alive.”
The depths may be expressed as “that deep place,” a phrase that may refer simultaneously to the ocean depths as well as to Sheol.
In a number of languages it may be necessary to render alive as a separate verb expression, since it cannot be readily tacked on to brought me back. Therefore one may need to translate the last clause of verse 6 as “brought me back from that deep place and caused me to live,” or “… to live again,” or “… caused my life to enter me again.”
The poet addresses the Lord as “my God,” the God with whom he has personal dealings as his worshiper (compare Psa 22.1).
For a discussion of the phrase O LORD my God, see 2.1.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .