With verse 5 begins the long body of the song in the form of a review of the past, or a flashback recalling God’s great deeds of mercy in rescuing David from a very dangerous situation. Although there is an occasional verse with parallelism, that is, repetition of the same idea, the text is made up of parallel lines that enable movement between lines and between verses so that the great moments of a story unfold. In this sense these poetic lines are somewhat narrative without becoming an epic. The translation team’s perception of the nature of the parallelism will help them to select those ways of speaking in their own language that will contribute to the intensifying effect, or the consequence, in the second of two parallel lines.

The parallelism in verses 5 and 6 is not typical. Both the a and b lines of each verse have a metaphor. The more typical structure is for the metaphor to occur in the second line, which is more vivid and intensive. However, verse 5 is a clear case of intensification; in line a the waves of death merely encompass, but in line b they turn into violent action. Good News Translation‘s rendering of the parallel in Psa 18.4 substitutes “danger of death” in line a, and thus intensifies line b with the figure “waves of destruction” and the active verb “rolled over me.” Here, however, Good News Translation retains the more literal rendering, “waves of death.” In some languages a literal rendering of verse 5 may give the impression that two different events are referred to. The waves of death and the torrents of perdition refer essentially to the same thing. Contemporary English Version has rendered verse 5 as follows:
Death, like ocean waves, surrounded me,
and I was almost swallowed by its flooding waters.

Verse 6 and the first two lines of verse 7 have parallel lines in which the second merely restates the first. There is no intensifying effect, nothing made more specific, and no consequence. The poet has simply chosen to introduce the flashback section by piling up images for the sake of emphasizing his threatened existence at some time in the past. With the second couplet in verse 7 begins the predominant structure of movement between parallel lines and between verses.

The expression the waves of death, and in fact the whole of verses 5 and 6, are similar to Jonah 2.3. However, in this context the expressions are clearly intended in a figurative sense.

In the four lines of these two verses, death … perdition … Sheol … death are all parallel, all indicating the danger of sudden death, either through sickness, or at the hands of enemies, or in battle. David thought that death was imminent; he was as good as dead.

It is generally assumed that the word translated perdition is a euphemism for Sheol (for which see the comments on 1 Sam 2.6). The Hebrew word is translated elsewhere in Revised Standard Version as “base” (1 Sam 1.16; see the comments there) and “worthless” (1 Sam 2.12). The dangers that threatened David with death are likened to waves, torrents, cords, and snares, all of which are metaphors for instruments of capture and destruction.

The four verbs are matched to the metaphors: (1) verse 5a, waves with encompassed, meaning “tie up, bind” (also Psa 18.6; 40.12; 116.3; “closed in” in Jonah 2.5); (2) verse 5b, torrents with assailed, meaning “fall upon, roll over, overwhelm”; some take the verb to mean “terrify”; (3) verse 6a, cords with entangled, meaning “be around,” that is, tie up (the same verb is translated in Revised Standard Version as “surround” in Psa 17.11); (4) verse 6b, snares with confronted, meaning “to face, to meet” (as in Psa 17.13).

In many languages it is not natural to refer to death as the waves of death. However, other images are often available: trap, snare, pit, and fire. One may sometimes say “the snares of death were around me” or “traps that kill were around me.”

Torrents of perdition may sometimes be translated by “great waters that destroy.” New Century Version speaks of “deadly rivers.”

Cords of Sheol may sometimes be replaced by such figures as “the traps of death catch me” or “the traps that kill take hold of me.”

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 .