Psalms 18:5

The sorrows of hell -Margin, “cords.” The word used here is the same which occurs in the previous verse, and which is there rendered “sorrows.” It is correctly translated here, as in that verse, “sorrows,” though the parallelism would seem to favor the interpretation in the margin - cords. If it means “sorrows,” the idea is, that such sufferings encompassed him, or seized upon him, as we associate in idea with the descent to the under-world, or the going down to the dead. If it means “cords, or bands,” then the idea is, that he was seized with pain as if with cords thrown around him, and that were dragging him down to the abodes of the dead. Luther, DeWette, Prof.