The Psalms of the Old Testament frequently employ metaphors to depict the psalmist’s enemies. In two instances, these enemies are explicitly described as hunters, and in more than forty occurrences, they are associated with the tools of hunting: traps and snares (פח/מוקש), nets and ropes (רשת/חבל) commonly used for birds, and pits or holes (בור/שחת) intended for larger animals. Often, the Psalms express a sense of poetic justice, portraying God as turning the schemes of the wicked against them—causing the enemies to be ensnared in the traps they set (Ps. 9:16) or to fall into the pits they themselves have dug (Ps. 7:16). While these metaphors frequently represent the enemies’ physical threat—especially the danger of death, which is often closely associated with such imagery—they also reflect a growing awareness in the psalmist of a deeper spiritual dimension. The metaphors evolve to suggest that these threats, while physical in form, point to underlying spiritual realities and conflicts.
To understand how the psalmist conceptualizes the enemies, this paper employs the cognitive linguistic theory of conceptual metaphors and surveys the trap imagery in the Psalms. Proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their influential work Metaphors We Live By, Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) explains how abstract concepts (e.g., “enemy”) are understood through metaphors grounded in concrete human experiences (e.g., “falling into a trap”).
In the following survey of the Psalms—especially within the lament genre—this paper highlights two prominent conceptual metaphors invoked by the enemy’s trap: (1) Enemy is a Trapper and (2) Death is a Downward Place. These metaphors are closely connected through the recurring image of the “pit,” which refers to an underground trap and, in many contexts, to the “pit of death.” Moreover, Death and Sheol are occasionally personified (e.g., “death as their shepherd” and “Sheol will consume them” in Psalm 49:14). This personification reflects not only literary imagery but also a developing theological awareness of the spiritual realities underlying physical threats—distinct from, yet occasionally echoing, ancient Near Eastern conceptions of the underworld.
While the Old Testament as a whole reflects a relatively underdeveloped understanding of death and the afterlife, the metaphor of the enemy’s trap in the Psalms reveals an evolving awareness of an ultimate enemy behind the phenomenon of death. These glimpses into the identity of this ultimate adversary—though subtle in the Psalms—are more fully developed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where spiritual forces are consciously identified as “the sons of Belial.” By the time of the New Testament, the psalmist’s metaphor of the trap largely disappears; however, in its few occurrences, it is explicitly associated with the schemes of the devil. Thus, the conceptual metaphors surrounding the enemy’s trap in the Psalms illustrate a theological trajectory within the Old Testament that ultimately culminates in the New Testament identification of Satan as the enemy behind death.