In verses 16-19 the psalmist describes how God rescued him from his enemies. In some languages translators will need to indicate the instrument of reached; for example, “the LORD reached his hand down from above and took hold of me,” as in Good News Translation.

Drew … out: the verb is used only here, 2 Samuel 22.17, and Exodus 2.10 (where it is given as the source of the name Moses).

Many waters refers to the primordial watery mass, that is, the “deep” that was “without form and void” (see 93.3-4; Gen 1.2), which described the chaos and disorder that existed before the creative word of God was uttered (see Gen 1.6-7). Here it is used in a figurative sense of death, the deadly peril from which Yahweh saved the psalmist.

The verb translated delivered is used in 7.1, and the verb translated hated appears in 5.5. It is very probable that the singular strong enemy in line a of verse 17 is the same as its parallel, the plural those who hated me, in line b; Dahood, however, takes both as singular (“Foe … Enemy”), referring to death. This does not seem very likely.

In some languages translators will need to examine the position of the reason clause, for they were too mighty for me, to determine if it should be shifted ahead of the first two lines, such as, “My enemies were too strong for me to defeat them, and so the LORD….”

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 .