Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 116:3

"The cords of death compassed me, And the pains of Sheol gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow." — Psalms 116:3 (ASV)

The pains of hell. —Or, oppressions of Sheôl, if we retain the text. But a very slight change in a single letter brings the clause into closer correspondence with Psalms 18:5-6, from where it is plainly borrowed, the nets of Sheôl. We may reproduce the original more exactly by using, as it does, the same verb in the last two clauses of the verse:

Nets of Sheôl caught me,
Trouble and sorrow I catch.