State benefits: who can say what the future holds? (8)
I believe the answer is:
prophets
'state benefits who can say' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how one could define the other.
'the future holds?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'the' is 'het' which is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'props' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'what' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for prophets that I've seen before include "Nahum, Joel etc." , "Oracles, seers" , "They forecast" .)