In verse 37b the word translated “idols” by Good News Translation is found only here and in Deuteronomy 32.17; it is taken by most to mean demons (so the Septuagint). The reference is still to the pagan deities, whom the psalmist calls demons (as in Deut 32.17). Bible en français courant “false gods” is better than “idols”; New English Bible “foreign demons” is not very satisfactory. Briggs defines the word as meaning the ancient gods of the Canaanites.

Verse 38 is long and wordy in Hebrew (see Revised Standard Version); Good News Translation has expressed the meaning more concisely. Because the Israelites had offered their innocent children as sacrifices, both the land (verse 38b) and they themselves (verse 39a) were made polluted and unclean, that is, unfit to worship Yahweh, to have fellowship with him.

If a translator wishes to reproduce the rather repetitious character of the Hebrew text in verses 37-38, the following may serve as a model:

• 37 They offered their own sons and daughters
as sacrifices to those false gods.
38 They killed those innocent children–
their own sons and daughters–
and offered them as sacrifices
to the idols of the Canaanites;
these killings made the land impure.

Idolatry is compared here, as often elsewhere in the Old Testament, to marital infidelity; Israel was Yahweh’s “wife,” and when she worshiped foreign gods she was being unfaithful to him. Revised Standard Version‘s quaint played the harlot is from King James Version; see New Jerusalem Bible‘s more vigorous “their behavior was that of a harlot.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .