It seems better, with Good News Translation (also New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), to use the descriptive present, “turn back … fall down and die,” instead of the historic past, turned back … stumbled and perished (Revised Standard Version; also Bible en français courant).

For turned back, compare the use of the same verb, “turn,” in 6.4. Here the emphasis is on the idea of turning back in defeat, a retreat.

Stumbled translates a verb meaning “to stagger, totter, stumble.” The statement in this verse seems to suggest soldiers fleeing from their enemies in battle, but no certain inference can be drawn from the text itself.

Before thee (“when you appear” Good News Translation) translates the Hebrew “before your face,” that is, “in your presence.” Here it indicates not simply the place where the psalmist’s enemies fall down and die but the reason for their destruction, that is, in their being faced by Yahweh in his anger (see 21.9; 34.16). New Jerusalem Bible “at your presence”; New English Bible “at thy appearing.” Also possible is “when you confront them.”

The Hebrew text, as reflected in Revised Standard Version, makes line a a dependent clause and line b the main clause. Good News Translation on the other hand takes “before your face” from line b and makes this a subordinate clause of line a (similarly Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), and thus relates the two parts of line a as result followed by reason. In some languages it may be necessary to put “before your face” or “when you appear” as the opening clause, followed then by three coordinate clauses of result. Before thee (Good News Translation “you appear”) must be expressed in some languages as “to show oneself” or “to be seen”; for example, “when my enemies see you, they turn back, they fall to the ground and die” or “when you show yourself to my enemies, they run away, fall down and die.”

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 .