The psalm begins with the psalmist’s prayer of thanksgiving; he stands in front of the Temple in Jerusalem, bows down, and praises Yahweh before the gods. It is not clear what this means; the most probable explanation is that the language reflects the concept of Yahweh’s sitting on his throne in heaven as the supreme God, surrounded by the other gods, who are part of his court (see 29.1; 58.1; 82.1; 97.7). The ancient versions had various translations: the Septuagint and Vulgate had “angels”; Syriac “kings”; the Targum “judges.” New Jerusalem Bible translates “the divine beings”; Bible de Jérusalem and New Jerusalem Bible “angels”; Bible en français courant “the powers in heaven.”1 Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “with my song I will praise you, you–and not the other gods!” New English Bible has “boldly, O God, will I sing….” New International Version reads “before the ‘gods’ I will sing your praise.” The quotation marks around “gods” indicates the word is used with a meaning other than its normal one. One wonders what the New International Version translators meant to say. Translators in many languages will have little choice but to say “before the gods” or “before the false gods,” which may seem contradictory in the context. Some languages say idiomatically “where the gods sit.”

It should be noted that in verse 1 the Masoretic text does not have the vocative LORD; but many Hebrew manuscripts (including the Qumran manuscript) have it, as well as the versions; translational needs may require it, whether or not it has a textual basis.1 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project prefers the Masoretic text (“C” decision), citing Factor 4: “simplification of the text (easier reading).” This is a rule that says that a difficult reading is more likely to be original than an easy reading, since a copyist would more likely try to make a difficult text easy than make an easy text difficult.

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 .