Ps. 74.9 (signs and silence)

We see / no signs / for us
there is no longer / a prophet / with us
nor one with us / who knows / for how long. 

In the context of the psalm these are immensely important lines. The summarize, in a way, everything that has preceded them and look forward to coming lines. Likewise, they embody the ethos of the psalmist and his people in their complete confusion. As a first point, the lines obviously look back to the ‘signs’ that the wicked established in the Temple following (or, during) its destruction (vs. 4; “they set up their own signs as signs”). There, we saw that the erection of the signs was a simultaneous act of conquering and shame/desecration. This was then followed by the complete destruction of the Temple and of all the ‘meeting-places’ in the land. With their liturgical centers cut off, they have, in effect, been severed from God. Likewise, and just as important, the wicked have accomplished this ‘silencing’ with the seeming approval of God; in how effortless they have been able to destroy his places, there is a perceived “unrelenting” anger of God against them. Again, the import is not in the destruction as such but in the places destroyed—the Temple and the “meeting-places”, those liturgical centers wherein Israel communes with her god. That is why this particular type of destruction is so terrible. It is in this context that the dearth of “signs” and “prophets” needs to be understood. It is as if God has ordained a divine silence wherein he is entirely keeping to himself whether or when he will re-engage his covenant power toward his people. Visually (“we see no signs”) and auditorily (no prophet), the people have no way of comprehending God’s silence. Everything has vanished (Temple) and God is silent (prophet). And, more than that, this is a profound silence. With the removal of the ‘prophet’, time has, in a way, been set to pause. We could even say that this is the silence of the Word (a foreshadowing, or participation in, the silence of the Word after the crucifixion and before Easter)—a point of seemingly definitive silence. With the final phrase of the psalm, it now shifts away from description and into question.  From this silence of the prophets (who cannot say for ‘how long’ this will last), the psalmist himself will put this question to God in the following verse (indeed, the very next words mirror these concluding words: “how long…”). Rather than it being an interpretation by a prophet, it can now only be asked as a question. Without a sign or a prophet, there is only a question.