We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.
Psalm 74 belongs to a group of psalms associated with the Babylonian captivity, psalms that give voice to the captives' sorrow and desolation, their longing, and their prayers for deliverance. It laments a condition in which there are no visible signs, there is no prophet, and there is no one among the people who knows how long their distress or affliction will last. That loss came after the people refused the prophets' calls to reform and rejected God and the prophets, treating their warnings as empty words. Prophetic guidance had been present while the people followed the Lord, but in a time of trouble and spiritual loss it was withheld, leaving the people to mourn.
The absence of a prophet means a serious loss of divine guidance and instruction, so that when the people sought a vision they found none. When prophetic signs and guidance ceased, God's people mourned because no prophet remained to tell them how long their affliction would last, an example of the lament that follows the loss of prophetic gifts and instruction. The withdrawal of the prophetic gift is equivalent to the withdrawal of God's right hand. The same condition applies when God's people cast down the fourth commandment and replace the Sabbath, God's sign, with a counterfeit, so that they no longer see prophetic signs or discern how long the condition will last.
The verse pictures a fiery trial at its highest point for the church, when there remain no visible hopes of deliverance and no outward encouragement that the scene will alter. In that state hands hang down and hearts faint, and the length of troubles becomes so sore a temptation that even the upright are tempted to put forth their hands to iniquity. Such temptation shakes those built on the rock, and it completely overturns those whose foundation is only sand. The same absence of prophecy and visions marks Jewish Palestine in the present age, for the voice of prophecy was silent between Malachi and Christ and would remain silent there.
Psalm 74 belongs to a group of psalms associated with the Babylonian captivity, psalms that give voice to the captives' sorrow and desolation, their longing, and their prayers for deliverance. It laments a condition in which there are no visible signs, there is no prophet, and there is no one among the people who knows how long their distress or affliction will last. That loss came after the people refused the prophets' calls to reform and rejected God and the prophets, treating their warnings as empty words. Prophetic guidance had been present while the people followed the Lord, but in a time of trouble and spiritual loss it was withheld, leaving the people to mourn.
The absence of a prophet means a serious loss of divine guidance and instruction, so that when the people sought a vision they found none. When prophetic signs and guidance ceased, God's people mourned because no prophet remained to tell them how long their affliction would last, an example of the lament that follows the loss of prophetic gifts and instruction. The withdrawal of the prophetic gift is equivalent to the withdrawal of God's right hand. The same condition applies when God's people cast down the fourth commandment and replace the Sabbath, God's sign, with a counterfeit, so that they no longer see prophetic signs or discern how long the condition will last.
The verse pictures a fiery trial at its highest point for the church, when there remain no visible hopes of deliverance and no outward encouragement that the scene will alter. In that state hands hang down and hearts faint, and the length of troubles becomes so sore a temptation that even the upright are tempted to put forth their hands to iniquity. Such temptation shakes those built on the rock, and it completely overturns those whose foundation is only sand. The same absence of prophecy and visions marks Jewish Palestine in the present age, for the voice of prophecy was silent between Malachi and Christ and would remain silent there.