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