Psalm 20 - Our king will reign forever

Psalm 20: Sunday Matins I, 1 

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
In finem. Psalmus David.	Unto the end. A psalm for David.
1 Dómine, in virtúte tua lætábitur rex: * et super salutáre tuum exsultábit veheménter.	In your strength, O Lord, the king shall joy; and in your salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly.
2  Desidérium cordis ejus tribuísti ei: * et voluntáte labiórum ejus non fraudásti eum.	3 You have given him his heart's desire: and have not withholden from him the will of his lips.
3  Quóniam prævenísti eum in benedictiónibus dulcédinis: * posuísti in cápite ejus corónam de lápide pretióso.	4 For you have prevented him with blessings of sweetness: you have set on his head a crown of precious stones.
4  Vitam pétiit a te: * et tribuísti ei longitúdinem diérum in sæculum, et in sæculum sæculi.	5 He asked life of you: and you have given him length of days for ever and ever.
5  Magna est glória ejus in salutári tuo: * glóriam et magnum decórem impónes super eum.	6 His glory is great in your salvation: glory and great beauty shall you lay upon him.
6  Quóniam dabis eum in benedictiónem in sæculum sæculi: * lætificábis eum in gáudio cum vultu tuo.	7 For you shall give him to be a blessing for ever and ever: you shall make him joyful in gladness with your countenance.
7  Quóniam rex sperat in Dómino: * et in misericórdia Altíssimi non commovébitur.	8 For the king hopes in the Lord: and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved
8  Inveniátur manus tua ómnibus inimícis tuis: * déxtera tua invéniat omnes, qui te odérunt.	9 Let your hand be found by all your enemies: let your right hand find out all them that hate you.
9  Pones eos ut clíbanum ignis in témpore vultus tui: * Dóminus in ira sua conturbábit eos, et devorábit eos ignis.	10 You shall make them as an oven of fire, in the time of your anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath, and fire shall devour them.
10  Fructum eórum de terra perdes: * et semen eórum a fíliis hóminum.	11 Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth: and their seed from among the children of men.
11  Quóniam declinavérunt in te mala: * cogitavérunt consília, quæ non potuérunt stabilíre.	12 For they have intended evils against you: they have devised counsels which they have not been able to establish.
12  Quóniam pones eos dorsum: * in relíquiis tuis præparábis vultum eórum.	13 For you shall make them turn their back: in your remnants you shall prepare their face.
13  Exaltáre, Dómine, in virtúte tua: * cantábimus et psallémus virtútes tuas.	14 Be exalted, O Lord, in your own strength: we will sing and praise your power.

St Benedict's selection of Psalm 20 to open Matins each Sunday was a radical one: starting at Psalm 1 was the norm for all of the traditional forms of the Office, monastic or otherwise.  So why did he do it?

In the Rule, St Benedict explicitly makes a link between this starting point and Prime.  After explaining how the psalms of Prime are to be divided and allocated to each day of the week, he says St Benedict's Rule says:

'Thus it comes about that the Night Office on Sundays will always begin with the twentieth psalm.' (RB18).  

 The Resurrection

The most obvious reason for the linkage is the Resurrection, a fitting opening prayer for the 'Lord's Day' when we celebrate that event afresh each week.

The variable psalmody of Saturday in the Office's mini-Triduum ends with Psalm 19, which, you will recall, is a prediction of the Resurrection and sings the praises of the triumphant king.  Cassiodorus explains its concluding verse, O Lord save the king...' as meaning, 'Let Christ the Lord rise from the dead, ascend into heaven, and intercede for us'.

As St Liguori reminds us, Psalm 20 is a song of the Resurrection:

Hymn of thanksgiving which the people address to God for the victories granted to the arms of David. According to Bellarmine, this psalm is understood in the spiritual sense of the victory which Jesus Christ gained through the merits of his Passion over sin and over hell.

Verse 4 is the key to this interpretation as St Augustine makes clear:

He asked life; and You gave Him: He asked a resurrection, saying, Father, glorify Your Son; and You gave it Him, Length of days for ever and ever. The prolonged ages of this world which the Church was to have, and after them an eternity, world without end.

Life of Christ in a week

The link between Psalm 19 and Psalm 20 also provides a link between that theme and the weekly program around the life of Christ that St Benedict sets out in Matins above all.

St Benedict makes Prime about Christ the King, the first and last, who fulfils the law and leads us into heaven.  But the psalms of that hour also link to the schema that I think is traces out each week the life of Christ from the Incarnation on Monday to the Resurrection on Sunday.

Against the denial of the divinity of Christ

The third reason for St Benedict's approach may have been to make a strong statement against the Arian heresy which was widespread in Italy in his time, and denied the true divinity of Christ.

Cassiodorus saw Psalms 18, 19 and 20 as setting out Christ's two natures, human and divine, and his discussion of Psalm 20 provides a strong exposition of its applicability in countering the Arian heresy (reborn in our time, above all in those who claim Christ was unaware of his divine nature and mission, acted in ways conditioned by the times, and so forth).  He comments:

Here a kind of panegyric is recited about His incarnation, and later the deeds of His divinity are recounted so that all may understand that the Son of Mary ever a virgin is identical with the Word of the Father. Our belief which is conducive to salvation is that there are two natures, divine and human, in Jesus Christ, and they continue in one Person unchangeably for ages without end. This statement should be repeated frequently, because regularly hearing and believing it brings life...

Accordingly, starting with Psalm 20 each week may have been interpreted as a bulwark against that heresy, consistent with the many other anti-Arian features of the Benedictine Office (the addition of the Gloria to each psalm, for example, and the closing 'litany', Kyrie eleison, Christie eleison, Kyrie eleison', which were all adopted in Gaul in the early sixth century specifically to address the heresy).

The eighth day

Above all though, the choice of the psalm surely reflects the eschatological character St Benedict gives Matins.  He sets out his instructions for Matins in the eighth chapter of the Rule; says it should be started at the eighth hour on what was in early Christian parlance the 'eighth day', the dawn of the first day of the new creation ushered in by the Resurrection. And St Athanasius summarises the psalm as revealing:

Christ’s kingdom, and the power of his judgment, and his coming again in the flesh to us and the summoning of the nations.

The Scriptural and liturgical uses of Psalm 20

The psalm arranged for liturgical use:

Psalm 20

Dómine, in virtúte tua lætábitur rex: * et super salutáre tuum exsultábit veheménter.	In your strength, O Lord, the king shall joy; and in your salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly.
Desidérium cordis eius tribuísti ei: * et voluntáte labiórum eius non fraudásti eum.	You have given him his heart's desire: and have not withholden from him the will of his lips.
Quóniam prævenísti eum in benedictiónibus dulcédinis: * posuísti in cápite eius corónam de lápide pretióso.	For you have prevented him with blessings of sweetness: you have set on his head a crown of precious stones.
Vitam pétiit a te: * et tribuísti ei longitúdinem diérum in sæculum, et in sæculum sæculi.	He asked life of you: and you have given him length of days for ever and ever.
Magna est glória eius in salutári tuo: * glóriam et magnum decórem impónes super eum.	His glory is great in your salvation: glory and great beauty shall you lay upon him.
Quóniam dabis eum in benedictiónem in sæculum sæculi: * lætificábis eum in gáudio cum vultu tuo.	For you shall give him to be a blessing for ever and ever: you shall make him joyful in gladness with your countenance.
Quóniam rex sperat in Dómino: * et in misericórdia Altíssimi non commovébitur.	For the king hopes in the Lord: and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved
Inveniátur manus tua ómnibus inimícis tuis: * déxtera tua invéniat omnes, qui te odérunt.	Let your hand be found by all your enemies: let your right hand find out all them that hate you.
Pones eos ut clíbanum ignis in témpore vultus tui: † Dóminus in ira sua conturbábit eos, * et devorábit eos ignis.	You shall make them as an oven of fire, in the time of your anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath, and fire shall devour them.
Fructum eórum de terra perdes: * et semen eórum a fíliis hóminum.	Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth: and their seed from among the children of men.
Quóniam declinavérunt in te mala: * cogitavérunt consília, quæ non potuérunt stabilíre.	For they have intended evils against you: they have devised counsels which they have not been able to establish.
Quóniam pones eos dorsum: * in relíquiis tuis præparábis vultum eórum.	For you shall make them turn their back: in your remnants you shall prepare their face.
Exaltáre, Dómine, in virtúte tua: * cantábimus et psallémus virtútes tuas.	Be exalted, O Lord, in your own strength: we will sing and praise your power.

Glória Patri, et Fílio, * et Spirítui Sancto.	Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, * et in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.	As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

NT references	-
RB cursus	Sunday matins
Monastic/(Roman) feasts etc	Ascension; Exaltation of Holy Cross; Common of confessors AN 5478 (4-6); 2963 (6); 1760, 2758, 2759,  (14);
Roman pre 1911	Sunday Matins+AN 2349 (1),
Responsories	7412 (4), 7114 (6), 6682 (14) Ascension no 3, 6681 (14) Common of a martyr: no 6, 6412, v4; no 9, 6341 (3-4); no 11, 6776 (4-6) St Scholastica no 7 (3)
Ambrosian	Tues M wk 1
Brigittine	Monday Sext
Maurist	Sunday M
Thesauris schemas	A: ; B: ; C: ; D:
Roman post 1911	1911-62: Monday Matins. 1970: Vespers (verses 2-8, 14), Tuesday wk 1
Mass propers (EF)	Easter Thurs OF V (cf 3) PP5: AL (2) Vigil of JB, IN (2), CO (5) St Thomas of Canterbury OF (3-6) St Matthew CO (6) Martyr not a bishop IN (2-4), OF (3-6) Martyr bishop TR (3-4)

 

The liturgical genius of St Benedict: Christ the fulfillment of the law**

Those who have been listening to Fr Cassian Folsom's series on Praying without Ceasing will know that one of his key themes has been the need to recover the reading of the psalms as the Fathers and St Benedict would have read them, above all, Christologically.   Fr Cassian has also drawn attention to the idea that St Benedict literally interprets the Office as being about Christ: put nothing before the work of God/Put nothing before Christ.

I came across a possible solution to something that has been puzzling me yesterday, and it is a nice example, I think, that takes what Fr Cassian has been talking about just a step further.  Accordingly, I thought I would share it partly by way of encouragement to catch up with his talks if you haven't already done so; partly as a taster for some broader research on the structure of the Office I hope to share here in due course; and also to stimulate your own meditations on the Office.

Any  comments on the plausibility or otherwise of my hypotheses below will be gratefully received on or offline.

The puzzle of Prime

One of the key features of the Benedictine Office, compared to the Roman Office that St Benedict took as his starting point, is the design of Prime.  In the old Roman Office, Prime to None were the same every day, featuring Psalm 118.  St Benedict instead varies the psalms for this hour every day, using Psalms 1-2, 6-19 and four stanzas of Psalm 118.

In many ways the use of these particular psalms is an odd one on the face of it, for instead of Sunday Matins starting the week with Psalm 1, it starts seemingly in the middle of things, with Psalm 20 (though as it turns out, that psalm is particularly apt to Sunday given that the Fathers saw it as pertaining to the Resurrection; and the likewise the psalms that follow).

Once one starts looking more closely though, there are in fact several reasons why St Benedict might have chosen to highlight these particular psalms.  Dom John Fortin pointed out some years back, for example, that they seem to echo some of the key themes in the Rule [1].

Christ the fulfillment of the law?

The particular feature of the Prime psalms that I've been interested in though, is their emphasis on the law. There are, in the psalter, three psalms that deal above all with the law, known as the three 'Torah psalms', namely Psalms 1, 18 (19) and 118 (119).  All three feature at Prime one day after another: Psalm 18, which features the line 'The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul' on Saturday (the old Sabbath); four stanzas of Psalm 118, the long hymn in praise of the law, on Sunday; and Psalm 1, 'Happy the man...who meditates on the law day and night', on Monday.

The threefold repetition is surely no accident, but rather symbolises the Trinity and perfection.

But what seemed particularly puzzling to me is why St Benedict arranges things so that this little trilogy starts on Saturday.  One possible answer is suggested, I think, by yesterday's Matins readings (for Thursday in the third week of Lent).

One of the most important themes of the Fathers was the idea of Christ as the fulfilment of the law.  A nice example of how this theme plays out in Patristic Scriptural exegesis is provided by St Ambrose's comments on why the first miracles recorded in St Luke's Gospel are of Christ healing on the Sabbath.  St Ambrose comments that:

"That the Lord began to heal on the Sabbath-day showeth in a figure how that the new creation beginneth where the old creation ended. 

It showeth, moreover, that the Son of God, Who is come not to destroy the law but to fulfil the law, is not under the law, but above the law.

Neither was it by the law, but by the Word, that the world was created, as it is written "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made."

The law, then, is not destroyed, but fulfilled, in the Redemption of fallen man. Whence also the Apostle saith: "Put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

Our hymn of praise to the law at Prime then, starts, as St Ambrose suggests on the Sabbath, to symbolise that the new creation starts where the old ends.

It continues on the 'eighth day', that celebrates the Resurrection and our redemption.

And is repeated a third time on Monday, a day I suggest that St Benedict makes a celebration of the Incarnation (most of the psalms of Matins are clearly linked to this theme by the patristic commentaries, indeed virtually the whole of the Benedictus and Magnificat can be reconstructed from lines in these psalms; moreover, Psalm 2 at Prime gives us the Introit verse for the Midnight Mass of Christmas).

It is a nice tie in that seems to me to illustrate the deeply Christological approach that St Benedict took to the design of his Office.

Christ the King

Just to reinforce that point, I should note that St Benedict actually takes the repetition of ideas further than the idea of Christ as the fulfillment of the law, for it is not just the 'Torah' psalms themselves we should look at, but also the other psalms placed with them.

In particular, on both Saturday and Monday we are also presented, in the following psalm, with the image of Christ the victorious king.  Michael Barber, in his book Singing in the Reign [2], drew attention to the similarities in content between Psalms 1 and 2 (Monday), and Psalms 18 (19) and 19 (20) (Saturday):

"Psalm 19 [18] is unique because of  its strong emphasis on wisdom.  Its role may be better understood when examined in light of Psalm 20 [19].  Together these two psalms - situated at the centre of book I - mirror Psalms 1 and 2.  Psalm 19 exalts the law of the Lord, the source of wisdom: "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple" (v. 7).  Them Psalm 20 evokes Psalm 2, speaking of the Lord's deliverance of the Davidic king from his enemies, sending support from Zion.  Thus, as in Psalms 1 and 2, wisdom is connected with the victorious Davidic king."

A similar point can be made on the similarities in content between these two sets of psalms, and the first four stanzas of Psalm 118 St Benedict uses at Sunday Prime.  Both Sunday Prime and Monday, for example, begin with a beatitude, praise the importance of the law, call for or prophesy the destruction of enemies and point to the victory 'over princes' (Ps 2; Ps 118, esp 21-23).

There is also arguably a reason why St Benedict uses Psalm 118 at Sunday Prime rather than Saturday or Monday, for on Monday, the beatitude contained in Psalm 1 'Happy the Man' is singular, referring as St Augustine insists in his commentary, to Christ himself.  Psalm 118, on the other hand, opens with a plural beatitude (Happy those who...): for Christ has opened the way to many through his Resurrection.

This particular example of a key motif in the Benedictine Office is also strongly suggestive of the linkages between the organisation of the Benedictine Office and St Benedict's spirituality more generally.

The dominant image of Christ as King certainly seems to echo through the Rule of St Benedict, for the very opening lines of the Prologue invite the monk to enlist in the army of the true King, Christ, and its an image that is repeated several times through the Rule directly (eg 42.4; 61.10), as well as underpinning the directions on how to pray (Chapter 20) and how to welcome visitors (RB 53).  A similar point can be made about the association between the Rule and the law.

The spirituality of St Benedict's Office?

Is this all too much of a stretch?  Personally I think that this example serves to illustrate the importance of looking at the psalms the way St Benedict would have, in order to unpack the true depths of meaning of his Office, and has hopefully served as a taster for a more thorough reconsideration of the design of the Benedictine Office.

Most contemporary commentators on St Benedict's Office, it has to be said, have struggled to find any systematic thematic or programmatic intent in St Benedict's psalm selections [3].  The consensus view has long been that established by Dom Adalbert de Vogue back in the 1960s, to the effect that St Benedict's changes to the old Roman Psalter were essentially minor ones, aimed primarily at giving the hours from Prime to None a little more variety. [4]  Indeed, James McKinnon summarised the received view on St Benedict's reforms of the Office as follows:

"The process was clearly not one motivated by selecting thematically appropriate psalms.  There was a measure of that only at Lauds and Compline.  Rather, the process was, in Vogues words, a "mechanistic" one, "a matter of a very modest task of arithmetic."[5]

My view is though, that a careful look at the psalms read in the light of the Fathers, as well as close examination of what actually lies behind the liturgical provisions of the Rule, will lead to a rather different conclusion.

Far from being purely mechanistic, I think St Benedict's construction of his Office was a very deliberate work indeed, with his ordering of the psalter aimed at providing both horizontal and vertical unity to it, and reflects a deeply Christological theology.

I'm certainly not the first to suggest this: there have been a few lonely voices that have hints of a deeper spirituality behind St Benedict's design of his psalter, and my comments build on this work. [6]  One key recent contribution, I think, is that of ex-Trappist turned Orthodox scholar Patrick Reardon, who has pointed to the existence of a weekly cycle in both the Orthodox and Benedictine Offices, that runs from Wednesday to Sunday each week and echoes the events of Holy Week. [7]  This cycle, he suggests, starts on Wednesday, with the betrayal of Christ by Judas (reflected in the fact that this was traditionally a fast day in the Benedictine Rule), takes in the events of the Triduum, and ends on Sunday, with a weekly mini-Easter Day celebration of the Resurrection.  All the same, he argues that the Benedictine psalter's programmatic focus is relatively limited, particularly compared to the Orthodox version.

My own view is that closer examination reveals that St Benedict's program is actually much more far reaching.  The bottom line is that in my view, far from representing a purely mechanistic process of adaptation, St Benedict's Office arguably represents a very deliberate spiritual agenda indeed.

Such an agenda does not, of course, have to be understood explicitly in order to shape a particular spirituality: as the experience of the old and new rites of the Mass suggests, an implicit theology can be a surprisingly powerful force in shaping attitudes and understandings.

Prime is of course, one of those hours that no longer exists in the horariums of most modern monasteries.  Indeed, even many monasteries that still say the entire psalter each week have abolished the hour.

Accordingly, making explicit what is implicit in St Benedict's Office may help make the case for the recovery of St Benedict's Office as part of the patrimony of his Order, as well as stimulate our own meditations on the psalms, and enhance our understanding of the Office more generally.  Accordingly, I hope you have found this 'taster' of interest.

Footnotes

[1] John D Fortin, “The Presence of God: a linguistic and thematic link between the doctrinal and liturgical sections of the Rule of Saint Benedict”, Downside Review 117 (1999) 293-308.

[2] Michael Barber, Singing in the Reign The Psalms and the Liturgy of God's Kingdom (with an introduction by Scott Hahn), Emmaus Road Publishing, 2001; pp90.

[3]  The two standard histories of the Office in general, which draw together and provide references to most of the key research on the Benedictine Office are Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West The Origins of the Divine Office and its Meaning for Today, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, rev ed, 1993, and Paul F Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church A Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office, Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008 reprint.

[4] For the mainstream views of the Office within the Order, see Adalbert de Vogüé, OSB, The Rule of Saint Benedict A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary, trans John Baptist Hasbrouck, Cistercian Publications: Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1983, pp 127-163; Timothy Fry OSB, Imogene Baker OSB, Timothy Horner OSB, Augusta Raabe OSB and Mark Sheridan OSB editors.  RB 1980. The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English with Notes. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1981; and Terrence G. Kardong, OSB, Benedict’s Rule. A Translation and Commentary. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996, pp209-217.

[5] James McKinnon, "The Origins of the Western Office", pp 63-73 in The Divine Office in the Middle Ages, Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, Written in Honor of Professor Ruth Steiner, edited by Ruth Steiner, Margot Elsbeth Fassler, Rebecca Anne Baltzer, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000: 72.

[6] See for example Laszlo Dobszay,“Critical Reflections on the Bugnini Liturgy: The Divine Office”, 1983 PDF available from http://musicasacra.com/literature/

[7] Patrick Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms, Conciliar Press, revised 2011.  See especially pp 125-126; 181-182.  It should be noted that helpful as this book is, it needs to be treated with some care from a Catholic perspective.  I should also note that I've recently come across a reference to a book on the psalms of the Benedictine psalter by the German monk Georg Braulik, which from its blurb at least sounds promising in this context; my copy has yet to arrive however.

**Update: I've now got the Braulik book, and at first glance at least, though of academic interest at least (providing you can read German) it is less relevant than I had hoped, being concerned primarily with modern arrangements of the psalter rather than St Benedict's (though there is a chapter on the Sunday Office that may have some relevant material in it).


**Cross-posted from Saints Will Arise

Psalms 20 to 31: Psalms of the Passion or Resurrection?

In my recent series over at Saints Will Arise on the structure of the Benedictine Office, I suggested that St Benedictine started Sunday Matins at Psalm 20 rather than Psalm 1 in order to give more of a Resurrection focus, in keeping with the nature of Sundays.

Joshua of Psallite Sapienter however, argues that we should view Psalms 21 to 30 as particularly focusing on the Passion, and hence an appropriate Lenten devotion.  He points to the suggestion by William of Autun (765-812) and Durandus (1237-1296) and  that Our Lord said all of these psalms while on the Cross.

Psalms of the Resurrection or psalms of the Passion?

There is certainly Scriptural warrant for viewing Psalm 21 in this way: Scripture puts its opening line (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me) on Our Lord's lips, and this is taken as impliedly a reference to the whole psalm. 

And I certainly have no doubt about the value of saying these psalms as a group as a devotion. 

But they should they really be viewed primarily as psalms of the Passion?

Psalm 21

In fact a large part of the point of the implied reference to the whole of Psalm 21 by Our Lord is as a prophesy of the Resurrection. 

While the first half of the psalm speaks very literally of the suffering Our Lord underwent, as Pope John Paul II pointed out in a General Audience on the psalm, its ending is one of triumph:

"On the other hand in quoting the beginning of Psalm 22, which he perhaps continued to recite mentally during the passion, Jesus did not forget the conclusion which becomes a hymn of liberation and an announcement of salvation granted to all by God. The experience of abandonment is therefore a passing pain which gives way to personal liberation and universal salvation. In Jesus' afflicted soul this perspective certainly nourished hope, all the more so since he had always presented his death as a passage to the resurrection as his true glorification. From this thought his soul took strength and joy in the knowledge that at the very height of the drama of the cross, the hour of victory was at hand."

Psalm 20

The key to the interpretation of this set of psalms surely has to be the opener of the group, Psalm 20, which features this key verse:

4  Vitam pétiit a te: * et tribuísti ei longitúdinem diérum in sæculum, et in sæculum sæculi.

5 He asked life of you: and you have given him length of days for ever and ever.

The Fathers invariably interpret this as a reference to the Resurrection.

St Irenaeus, for example asked:

"Why does the Psalmist say: "Life you have asked for', since Christ was about to die? In this way, the Psalmist proclaims his Resurrection from the dead and his immortality after rising from the dead. In fact, he entered life in order to rise again, and through the space of time in eternity, so as to be incorruptible" (Esposizione della Predicazione Apostolica, 72, Milan, 1979, p. 519).

Similarly, St Augustine commented:

"He asked life; and You gave Him: He asked a resurrection, saying, Father, glorify Your Son; John 17:1 and You gave it Him, Length of days for ever and ever. The prolonged ages of this world which the Church was to have, and after them an eternity, world without end."

The rest of the set

St Benedict, I think, was undoubtedly influenced by the Fathers' view of this group of psalms as having more of a Resurrection focus than a Passion one.

In the Septuagint text, four of them have titles rendered into Latin as 'in finem', which is invariably interpreted by the Fathers to be a reference to the Resurrection and/or Second Coming.

Several others have equally suggestive, upbeat titles: Psalm 23, for example, is labelled 'for the first day after the Sabbath', and Cassiodorus comments on it:

"A psalm of David on the first day of the week. Let us with the Lord's help eagerly remove the veil of this title, so that the inner sanctum may become clearer to us. The first day of the week indicates the Lord's day, the first after the sabbath, the day on which the Lord rose from the dead. It is rightly called the Lord's day because of the outstanding nature of the miracle, or because on that day He stabilised the world, for by rising again on it He is seen to lend succour to the world and is declared also its Maker. Because the whole psalm is sung after the resurrection, this heading has been set before it to inform the hearts of the faithful with the appropriate indication."

Similarly, let's look at what St Augustine has to say about the opening and closing of Joshua's proposed set of psalms:

Psalm 21 (My God, my God why have you forsaken me): St Augustine opens his commentary on this Passion psalm as follows:

To the end, for His own resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself speaks. John 20:1-17 For in the morning on the first day of the week was His resurrection, whereby He was taken up, into eternal life, Over whom death shall have no more dominion."

Psalm 30 (In you have I hoped): St Augustine comments:

To the end, a Psalm of the joy of the Resurrection, and the change, the renewing of the body to an immortal state, and not only of the Lord, but also of the whole Church. For in the former Psalm the tabernacle was finished, wherein we dwell in the time of war: but now the house is dedicated, which will abide in peace everlasting."

What about the content of these psalms?

Take a look too, at a couple of  key verses in this set, and you will similarly see why they can be seen as much as hymns of the Resurrection as the Passion.

Psalm 22 (The Lord is my shepherd): ends with the verse: "And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days".

Psalm 23 (The earth is Lord's): Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in", made famous by Handel's setting of it, is the quintesential Resurrection verse.

In fact pretty much all of these psalms have some verses that are generally interpreted as references to heaven and/or the Resurrection.

Psalms 21 to 30 in the Office

Nonetheless, there seem to have been an intriguing development in thinking about these psalms, reflected in their liturgical use. 

In the oldest form of the Roman Office, Psalms 1 to 26 were said at Sunday Matins, and 27 to 31 as part of Monday Matins.  This arguably simply reflects the older 'running cursus' approach to the Office.

As I noted above, Psalms 20 to 31 were shifted to Sunday Matins by St Benedict.  That seems to me to reflect a deliberate design decision, reflecting the Resurrection focus on Sunday.  That is consistent with St Benedict's firm focus on heaven: you will be hard-pressed to find an explicit reference to the Cross in his Rule!

But there was an interesting Reformation development in the Roman Office: under Pope Pius V, psalms 21 to 25 were taken out of Sunday Matins and reallocated to Prime, but not in numeric order. 

Instead, Psalm 21 (My God, my God why have you forskaen me) moved to Friday, giving that day an obvious Passion focus.  Psalm 22 (The Lord is my shepherd) was allocated to Thursday, perhaps to reflect its eucharistic connotations; Psalm 23 was placed on Monday; Psalm 24 on Tuesday; and Psalm 25 to Wednesday.

The Pius X reorganisation of the Psalter retained those allocations for Prime, but further shuffled the Matins psalms so that the remaining psalms of  Psalm 20 to 31 were now said on Monday at various hours.

St Benedict revisited

To go back to my rather upbeat view of these psalms, suffice it to note that St Benedict's set of Sunday Matins psalms starts with a psalm of the Incarnation (Psalm 20), and ends on one of the seven penitential psalms.   But is a penitential psalm that starts "Blessed are those...", and ends with an injunction to "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you just, and glory, all you right of heart. "

In the end I suspect your focus is depends on your particular school of spirituality....