Pre- mid- or post-?

"Corporate personality" is exactly what I'm driving at. I'm glad you can see the corporate metaphor of Psalm 80. You'll notice it's identified as a "Psalm of the Captivity." This is a very eloquent psalm, one obviously burned into the minds of the prophets who addressed this very captivity, because they turn to its images and metaphors on a regular basis to talk about captivity and coming out of captivity.

Jesus talks about the "Son of Man" so frequently that we forget, sometimes, that it was a very specfic symbol for him--being biologically, mentally, and culturally Jewish, Jesus would have seen the scriptures through Jewish lenses.

I can understand your reluctance to embrace Jesus as spiritual Israel. Metaphors are always a tricky thing,
and can be understood in a variety of ways based on the different understandings of the reader or hearer. John gives us a window into this "Son of Man" as a misinterpreted symbol, a concept misunderstood by Jesus' contemporaries:

John 12.34 The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?

Many of the people understood the Son of Man as a conquering hero, and this is based on reading Daniel 7.13-14 and the following "decoding" the angel offers to the prophet. But Jesus had a different idea altogether of the Son of Man, and how this Son could achieve this eternal victory, and of the path set out for the Son by the prophets:

Mark 9.12 And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.

We know Jesus wasn't misguided--if he says "It is written of the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought," then it MUST be written in the scriptures. Only trouble is, there is NOTHING written in the scriptures that directly says "Ths Son of Man must suffer." There is, however, something written about Israel, personified as a suffering servant, a verse you and I are familiar with:

Isaiah 53.4-5 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

We are familiar with this passage as prophecy of Jesus--Jesus was familiar with this verse as a prophecy of Israel. This particular kind of reading comes from understanding the book of Isaiah as whole, and especially recognizing Isaiah 40-66 as the poetic play that it is (sometimes, this portion of Isaiah is called "The Song of Isaiah"). In this play appear several symbolic characters (like Zion the Bride of God) and the significant one for us is symbolic Israel:

Isaiah 41.8-9 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

When Isaiah writes of one "like a tender plant" suffering for the trangressions of all who "have like sheep gone astray," he's explaining the suffering of Israel as necessary chastisement because of the unfaithfulness "us all." Jesus, calling himself the "Son of Man," qualifies himself to be God's sacrificial lamb by which he can make sacrifice for the sins of Israel--the "Israel of God," that is, which is comprised not of biological Jews, but of "Jews inwardly." Of course, this can take a lot of time to digest--you can see that a lot of it was lost on the apostles and later disciples for quite some time.

"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." John 5.39-40