Psalms 50:5

Gather&c. To whom is the command addressed? Perhaps to the angels who are God's ministers of judgement (Matthew 24:31), and by whom He appears attended (Deuteronomy 33:2); less probably to heaven and earth, which according to the analogy of the parallel passages, are summoned as witnesses. But perhaps no definite reference at all is intended, and no particular messengers are in the Psalmist's mind (cp. Isaiah 13:2).

my saints The word châsîddenotes those who are the objects of Jehovah's chesedor lovingkindness. -saint," like -servant," as applied to Israel, expresses the relation in which Jehovah has placed the nation towards Himself, without necessarily implying that its character corresponds to its calling (Psalms 79:2; Isaiah 42:19). The indictment against many of the Israelites is that their conduct towards their fellow-men is entirely destitute of that -lovingkindness" which ought to reflect the lovingkindness of Jehovah towards them. On the word châsîdsee Appendix, Note i.

those that have made&c. Or, those that make &c. The reference is not merely to the original ratification of the covenant with the nation at Sinai (Exodus 24:5 ff.), but to the recognition and maintenance of it by each fresh generation with repeated sacrifices. The previous line refers (in the word -saints") to the divine grace which is the originating cause of the covenant with Israel, this line to the human act which acknowledges that grace and the obligations which it entails. It has been thought strange that the Ps. which depreciates sacrifice should recognise it as the sanction of the covenant, and it has been suggested that these words are merely -ironical." It is however impossible to regard them as merely ironical. Though the Decalogue contained no command to offer sacrifice, the primitive institution of sacrifice was sanctioned and regulated by the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:24 ff). Sacrifice had its divinely appointed place in the economy of the old Covenant, though not that which formal and hypocritical worshippers imagined. It could not be a substitute for devotion and morality; but its abuse did not abrogate its use. See Oehler's O.T. Theology, § 201.