A net. — For this image, so common in Hebrew hymns, see Psalms 9:15, &c, and for that of the pit, Psalms 7:15, &c
My soul is bowed down. — The verb so rendered is everywhere else transitive. So LXX. and Vulg. here, “And have pressed down my soul.” Despite the grammar, Ewald alters “my soul” into “their soul.” But no conjecture of the kind restores the parallelism, which is here hopelessly lost. We expect,
They have prepared a net for my steps;
They are caught in it themselves.