Mazmur 50:5

50:5 He says: ¹ 

“Assemble my covenant people before me, ² 

those who ratified a covenant with me by sacrifice!” ³ 

Mazmur 85:3

85:3 You withdrew all your fury;

you turned back from your raging anger. ⁴ 

[50:5]  ¹ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. God’s summons to the defendant follows.

[50:5]  ² tn Or “Gather to me my covenant people.” The Hebrew term חָסִיד (khasid, “covenant people”) elsewhere in the psalms is used in a positive sense of God’s loyal followers (see the note at Ps 4:3), but here, as the following line makes clear, the term has a neutral sense and simply refers to those who have outwardly sworn allegiance to God, not necessarily to those whose loyalty is genuine.

[50:5]  ³ tn Heb “the cutters of my covenant according to sacrifice.” A sacrifice accompanied the covenant-making ceremony and formally ratified the agreement (see Exod 24:3-8).

[85:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81. See Pss 69:24; 78:49.