Psalms 50:5,6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gather my saints, &c. O ye angels, summon and fetch them to my tribunal. Which is poetically spoken, to continue the metaphor and representation of the judgment here mentioned. My saints The Israelites, whom he calls saints; 1st, Because they were all by profession a holy people, as they are called in Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy,, 2 d, As an argument and evidence against them, because God had chosen and separated them from all the nations of the earth, to be a holy and peculiar people to himself, and they also had solemnly and frequently devoted themselves to God and his service; all which did greatly aggravate the guilt of their present apostacy. Those that have made a covenant with me, &c. Who have entered into covenant with me, and have ratified that covenant with me by sacrifice Not only in their parents, Exodus 24:4, &c., but also in their own persons from time to time, even as often as they have offered sacrifices to me. This seems to be added, to acquaint them with the proper nature, use, and end of sacrifices, which were principally appointed to be signs and seals of the covenant made between God and his people; and consequently to convince them of their great mistake in trusting to their outward sacrifices, when they neglected the very life and soul of them, which was the keeping of their covenant with God: and withal to diminish that too high opinion which they had of sacrifices, and to prepare the way for the abolition of them. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness Which they were called to witness, Psalms 50:4, as was the earth also; but here he mentions the heavens only, probably, because they were the most impartial and considerable witnesses in the case. For men upon earth might be false witnesses, either through ignorance and mistake, or through prejudice, partiality, and passion; but the angels understand things more thoroughly, and are so exactly pure and sinless, that they neither can nor will bear false witness for God; and therefore their testimony is more valuable. Or, the meaning is, that God would convince the people of his righteousness, and of their own wickedness, by thunders and lightnings, and storms, or other dreadful signs wrought by him in the heavens. For God is judge himself In his own person. God will not now reprove them by his priests or prophets, but in an extraordinary manner from heaven.