The Hebrews associated death with she’ol, the figurative abode of the dead, conceived of, in poetic imagery, as a place the entrance to which was guarded by gates (Isa. 38:10). In the Babylonian concept, she’ol was a city enclosed by seven walls with seven double-bolted gates to keep the dead from returning to the land of the living. The psalmist felt that he had come so near to the gate of death that only God could rescue him; so now in the present peril he looks to Him for deliverance. The phrase “gates of death” appears also in Ps. 107:18. In all of Ps. 9 only v. 13 interrupts the succession of triumphant declarations.