Matthew Poole and continuators on Psalms 118:19

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness : I will go in to them, and I will praise the LORD.

O ye porters, appointed by God for this work. Or it is a figurative and poetical manner of expression, whereby he speaks to the gates themselves, as if they had sence and understanding. Or by saying, open, he implies that they had been long shut against him in Sauls time.

To wit, the gates of the Lords Tabernacle; the proper and usual place for the solemn performance of the duty here following, which he calleth the gates of righteousness; partly in opposition to the gates of death, of which he speaks implicitly v. 18. and expresly, Psal. 9. 14. & 107. 18. which may be called the gates of sin or unrighteousness, because death is the wages of sin: partly because there the rule of righteousness was kept and taught, and the sacrifices of righteousness (as they are called Psal. 4. 5.) were offered, and divers other exercises of righteousness or of Gods service were performed▪ and partly because those gates were to be opened to all righteous persons (such as David had oft professed and proved himself to be, upon which account he claims this as his just priviledge) and onely to such, for the unclean and unrighteous were to be shut and kept out by the porters, 2 Chron. 23. 19. Compare Isa. 26. 2.