For verses 38-43 Revised Standard Version uses the past tense of specific events; Good News Translation has the present tense of habitual or continuing actions. The translator must decide which seems better. In line with similar cases, it is recommended that Good News Translation be followed.

The verb pursued is found in 2.19; 17.1; 20.6. The second verb, destroyed, replaces “overtook,” which is found in Psa 18.37. The verb translated destroyed occurs also in 14.11, 16; 21.5; 1 Sam 24.21. Together the two verbs show a progression that should be retained in translation.

They were consumed translates a verb meaning “to cease, to be finished, to be wiped out.” The use of the passive form, as Revised Standard Version has done, may imply that someone else “consumed” them. The Hebrew text says only “to consume them,” with no explicit subject for the infinitive. It seems better to use the active voice, with the writer of the psalm as the subject: “I destroy them” (Good News Translation). The verb is repeated at the beginning of verse 39 in the 2 Samuel version of this psalm, although this is not the case in Psa 18. This second occurrence is in the first person singular in Hebrew, but it is omitted by Good News Translation, perhaps for stylistic reasons. But since the Hebrew repeats this verb, Good News Translation may not be the best model here.

In verse 39 I thrust … through translates a verb meaning to break in pieces (Good News Translation “I strike … down”). New Jerusalem Bible and Revised English Bible translate similarly. Here, of course, it refers to defeat in battle. The English phrase “thrust through” means specifically to drive a sword or a lance through someone’s body, but the Hebrew verb does not have that specific sense.

The verbal expression did not rise is different in form from “were not able to rise” in Psa 18.38. But there seems to be no significant difference in meaning, and the same Hebrew verb is used in both verses.

The phrase they fell under my feet is a picture of destruction and death, not that of the defeated enemy meekly submitting to the victor. In some languages expressions for killing people depend upon the manner of action; for example, intentional or unintentional, by witchcraft, ambush, secretly planned, and the like. In this context David refers to battles with enemy troops, where intentional killing of enemy soldiers is understood. Since the parallelism of verse 39 is one of consequences, the verse may be rendered, for example, “When I beat my enemies down [knock them down], they cannot get up again; so they die at my feet defeated” or “… they are finished.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .