osa dicta sunt de te:
Civitas Dei.

It has already been pointed out that the personal element in the
Psalms, vivid and even passionate as it appears, if they are read as
mere lyrics, has been transformed by the Church's use of them as her
hymns of worship. The "I" of the Psalter has become the voice of the
worshipping community.

The Jews themselves recited the personal Psalms in a national sense.
Even such an intensely personal confession of sin as the 51st Psalm
becomes through the last two verses (possibly added by a later pen) the
confession of national penitence and the voice of national hope:

O be favourable and gracious unto Sion:
Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.

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But besides such liturgical adaptations, whether of letter or spirit,
many of the later Psalms, especially those which clearly belong to the
period of the second Temple, were written intentionally for the nation
as a whole. "We" predominates, instead of the earlier "I." In these
Psalms the nation reviews her past history, or cries out against her
present oppressors, or looks onward to liberty and enlargement in the
future.

But the nation which thus finds her voice in the Psalms is of a
different spirit from the kingdoms of this world. Her patriotism is of
a higher order. She is conscious of a Divine vocation, separating her
from the nations of the heathen:

Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt:
Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.
(lxxx. 8.)

What time as they went from one nation to another:
From one kingdom to another people;
He suffered no man to do them wrong:
But reproved even kings for their sakes;
Touch not Mine Anointed:
And do My prophets no harm.
(cv. 13-15-)

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She has a treasure committed to her keeping, which others have not:

He sheweth His word unto Jacob:
His statutes and ordinances unto Israel.
He hath not dealt so with any nation:
Neither have the heathen knowledge of His laws.
(cxlvii. 19-20.)

She has a hope that burns within her, which to the world would be
foolishness:

The Lord hath chosen Sion to be a habitation for Himself:
He hath longed for her.
This shall be my rest for ever:
Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.
(cxxxii. 14, 15.)

In other words, the community which speaks in the Psalter is more than
a nation; she is a theocracy, a Church. Her characteristic names are
prop