The poet begins with the earnest prayer that God would again have compassion upon His church, upon which His judgment of anger has fallen, and would again set up the ruins of Zion. Why for ever (Psalm 74:10, Psalm 79:5; Psalm 89:47, cf. Psalm 13:2)? is equivalent to, why so continually and, as it seems, without end? The preterite denotes the act of casting off, the future, Psalm 74:1, that lasting condition of this casting off. למה, when the initial of the following word is a guttural, and particularly if it has a merely half-vowel (although in other instances also, Genesis 12:19; Genesis 27:45; Sol 1:7), is deprived of its Dagesh and accented on the ultima, in order (as Mose ha-Nakdan expressly observes) to guard against the swallowing up of the ah; cf. on Psalm 10:1. Concerning the smoking of anger, vid., Psalm 18:9. The characteristically Asaphic expression צאן מרעיתו is not less Jeremianic, Jeremiah 23:1. In Psalm 74:2 God is reminded of what He has once done for the congregation of His people. קדם, as in Psalm 44:2, points back into the Mosaic time of old, to the redemption out of Egypt, which is represented in קנה (Exodus 15:17) as a purchasing, and in גאל (Psalm 77:15; Psalm 78:35, Exodus 15:13) as a ransoming (redemptio). שׁבט נחלתך is a factitive object; שׁבט is the name given to the whole nation in its distinctness of race from other peoples, as in Jeremiah 10:16; Jeremiah 51:19, cf. Isaiah 63:17. זה (Psalm 74:2) is rightly separated from הר־ציון (Mugrash); it stands directly for אשׁר, as in Psalm 104:8, Psalm 104:26; Proverbs 23:22; Job 15:17 (Ges. 122, 2). The congregation of the people and its central abode are, as though forgotten of God, in a condition which sadly contrasts with their election. משּׁאות נצח are ruins (vid., Psalm 73:18) in a state of such total destruction, that all hope of their restoration vanishes before it; נצח here looks forward, just as עולם (חרבות), Isaiah 63:12; Psalm 61:4, looks backwards. May God then lift His feet up high (פּעמים poetical for רגלים, cf. Psalm 58:11 with Psalm 68:24), i.e., with long hurried steps, without stopping, move towards His dwelling - lace that now lies in ruins, that by virtue of His interposition it may rise again. Hath the enemy made merciless havoc - he hath ill-treated (הרע, as in Psalm 44:3) everything (כּל, as in Psalm 8:7, Zephaniah 1:2, for חכּל or את־כּל) in the sanctuary - how is it possible that this sacrilegious vandalism should remain unpunished!

Psalm 74:9 Parallel Commentaries

we see

Exodus 12:13 And the blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you...

Exodus 13:9,10 And it shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD's law may be in your mouth...

Judges 6:17 And he said to him, If now I have found grace in your sight, then show me a sign that you talk with me.

Ezekiel 20:12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.

Hebrews 2:4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost...

no more

1 Samuel 3:1 And the child Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.

Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, said the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water...

Micah 3:6 Therefore night shall be to you, that you shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark to you, that you shall not divine...