Psalm 106:37–40 records the national sin of child sacrifice in Israel and God’s fierce response to it. It is the most direct Old Testament passage linking the shedding of innocent blood to national bloodguilt and divine judgment on the land itself.
“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance.” (Psalm 106:37–40)
What Psalm 106:37–40 means in context
Psalm 106 is a historical psalm that recounts Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness and God’s patient but just response. It traces the pattern from Egypt through the wilderness to the conquest of Canaan and the monarchy. Verses 34–39 describe the worst stage of Israel’s apostasy: rather than driving out the Canaanite nations as God commanded, Israel adopted their practices—including the sacrifice of their own children to pagan idols.
The language is emphatic and horrifying. The psalmist does not soften it:
- “Sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils” (shedim): The word shedim refers to demonic beings, false gods. The children were offered not to the LORD but to demons. This is the deepest inversion of worship and parental duty.
- “Shed innocent blood”: The children are explicitly called innocent. They bore no guilt. Their blood cries out precisely because they did nothing to deserve death.
- “The land was polluted with blood”: In the Old Testament, innocent blood pollutes the land itself (Numbers 35:33–34). Bloodguilt is not merely a personal sin. It is a corporate, territorial defilement that affects the whole community and calls down God’s judgment on the nation.
The result is devastating: God’s wrath was kindled against His own people. He “abhorred his own inheritance”—the covenant nation itself. The shedding of innocent blood did not merely displease God. It provoked His active wrath against the entire nation that tolerated it.
The governing moral principle
Psalm 106:37–40 teaches a principle that runs throughout the Old Testament: the shedding of innocent blood brings corporate bloodguilt on the nation that permits it, and that bloodguilt provokes God’s judgment.
This principle is not unique to Israel’s ceremonial system. It is grounded in the creation-order prohibition of murder (Genesis 9:6) and in the moral law’s universal scope. Numbers 35:33 states the principle explicitly: “Blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.”
The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 136) identifies among sins against the sixth commandment not only personal killing but also “neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life.” A nation that tolerates, funds, or institutionalizes the shedding of innocent blood is not merely failing to prevent evil. It is incurring corporate guilt.
How this connects to bloodguilt and unjust violence
Psalm 106 is not an ancient curiosity. Its principle applies wherever a nation tolerates or institutionalizes the shedding of innocent blood:
- Abortion on an industrial scale parallels the pattern described in Psalm 106. Innocent blood is shed—not to demons by name, but under ideological justifications that treat innocent human life as disposable. The principle of bloodguilt does not depend on the religious label attached to the killing. It depends on the innocence of the blood.
- Unjust warfare that deliberately targets civilian populations or pursues wars of aggression without just cause sheds innocent blood and brings bloodguilt on the nation that wages it.
- State-sponsored violence against the innocent—whether through extrajudicial killing, torture of prisoners, or complicity in the violence of allied regimes—falls under the same principle. The magistrate who uses the sword against the innocent rather than the guilty inverts his God-given commission (Romans 13:3–4).
The critical insight of Psalm 106 is that bloodguilt is national, not merely individual. A nation that collectively permits the shedding of innocent blood—through legislation, funding, or institutional indifference—incurs collective guilt before God. The land is polluted, and God’s judgment falls on the people as a whole.
Guardrails and limits
Psalm 106 does not teach that every military action, every war, or every difficult policy decision constitutes bloodguilt. The Reformed tradition recognizes just war, lawful execution, and necessary defense as legitimate uses of force (WLC 136). The principle of bloodguilt applies specifically to the unjust shedding of innocent blood.
It also does not teach that individual citizens bear personal guilt for every act of their government. Corporate guilt is a biblical concept, but it operates differently from personal guilt. The citizen’s responsibility is to advocate, vote, and speak against bloodshed—not to bear personal condemnation for acts he opposed.
Nor should this passage be used to provoke despair or fatalism. Psalm 106 ends with a cry for mercy (vv. 44–47), and the pattern of the psalm is that God remembers His covenant even in judgment. The call is to repentance and reform, not to hopelessness.
The main takeaway
Psalm 106:37–40 teaches that the shedding of innocent blood pollutes the land and brings God’s wrath on the nation that tolerates it. This is not a metaphor. It is a theological reality attested across the Old Testament and grounded in the creation-order sanctity of human life. Applied to questions of bloodguilt, it teaches that legislators, executives, and nations that institutionalize the killing of the innocent—whether through abortion, unjust war, or state violence against the defenseless—incur corporate guilt before God. The call is not to despair but to repentance, reform, and the active protection of innocent life.