People and Peoples followup

I said I would check Psalms to see how it read from a peoples/family perspective, as opposed to an individual perspective. So here goes.

If I were repeating this exercise, I might come up with a slightly different partitioning--not everything is clear cut. But the first distinction is a grammatical one: is this an "I" or a "we" song or does it not appear in English (NASB) or obviously refer to the Messiah?

• I
  
  1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 101, 102, 108, 109, 111, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 130, 131, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146

---

• WE
  
  8, 12, 14, 20, 44, 47, 48, 60, 74, 75, 79, 80, 85, 90, 100, 103, 105, 106, 107, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 137

---

• Neither or clearly messianic (not me)
  
  2, 8, 10, 19, 21, 24, 29, 33, 36, 37, 45, 46, 50, 53, 58, 65, 67, 68, 72, 76, 78, 81, 82, 83, 87, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 125, 127, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 147, 148, 149, 150

The next question is whether the song is best understood as an individual talking to God, or it sort-of could-be a group, or it works both individual or group, or it is definitely "we", or not really applicable to this scheme.

• Individual
  
  18, 27, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 49, 51, 55, 62, 63, 88, 131, 139

---

• Sort-of group but mostly individual
  
  16, 17, 22, 26, 35, 40, 52, 57, 69, 71, 86, 89, 91, 94, 101, 111, 112, 116, 119, 125, 131, 141, 144

---

• Individual or Group both work
  
  1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 19, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 54, 56, 59, 61, 64, 70, 73, 84, 90, 92, 100, 102, 107, 109, 121, 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, 138, 140, 142

---

• Clearly Us
  
  12, 14, 15, 20, 33, 34, 37, 44, 47, 60, 65, 66, 68, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 95, 96, 97, 98, 103, 105, 106, 122, 123, 133, 137, 143, 147

---

• Not applicable to this scheme
  
  2, 8, 21, 24, 29, 36, 45, 46, 48, 50, 53, 58, 67, 72, 75, 76, 82, 93, 99, 104, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 129, 132, 134, 135, 136, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150

Reviewing the Psalms this way suggests that this isn't as clear a study as I hoped. Though a great many psalms are (and of course have been) used by groups, the themes of group suffering, group longing, group repentance, and so on don't dominate. They're there if you want them.

And as AVI pointed out, identity was thought of differently then.

UPDATE: I left out one little detail: the church is the new Israel, and it could suffer in the same ways as the Jews did, for the same kinds of reasons.