We see not our signs... — It is natural to take this statement in direct contrast to what Psalms 74:4 (see Note) says of the heathen signs. While these abominations — rallying points of savage profanity — were visibly set up, the tokens of the invisible God’s presence, His wonders wrought for Israel, are no more seen.
There is no more any prophet. — This was the constant lament of the Maccabæan period (1Ma. 4:46; 1Ma. 9:27; 1Ma. 14:41), and suits no earlier time — at least none into which the rest of the psalm would fit. During the exile period Jeremiah and Ezekiel were prophesying, and the complaint took quite a different form then and probably for some time afterwards (Lamentations 2:9; Ezekiel 7:26). The full desolation of the situation is told in “Song of the Three Children,” Psalms 74:15; “Neither is there at this time prince, or prophet, or leader, or burnt offering, or sacrifice, or oblation, or incense, or place to sacrifice before Thee or find mercy.”
Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. — This, too, carries us on past the time of Jeremiah, who had given an exact date for the termination of the exile. Probably (if the arrangement of the words is right) we have here another expression of a widely-spread feeling — a feeling which inspired the apocalyptic literature, which had for its object partly to answer this question, how long? But it has been suggested, as more in the Hebrew style, to end the clause with the word know, and make it directly parallel with the preceding (“there is neither a prophet nor one who knows”), and carry on the interrogative to the next verse, where its repetition would add much to the force of the question there put. (Burgess.)