Joshua 2:18 · Symbol · Hope
The Words Tiqvah and Elpis
Tiqvah in Hebrew and elpis in Greek are the Bible's chief nouns for hope, and four verbs stand beside them in the Old Testament and the New.
Tiqvah, the Hebrew word Jeremiah uses for hope, first names the scarlet cord that marked Rahab's house at Jericho.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- The word
- תִּקְוָה (tiqvah), H8615
- First appears
- Joshua 2:18 “unless, when we enter the land, you have…”
Summary
Each of these words can name a hope that fails as well as one that holds. The hope Scripture calls sure is the hope set on God, and each word takes its sense from the verses in which it stands. In Job the Hebrew noun most often names a failing hope, and in Paul the Greek noun names a confidence resting on God's promise.
- Of the uses of tiqvah (H8615) in the Hebrew Bible, 21 are in Job and Proverbs.
- Qavah (H6960) means to wait for, and yachal (H3176) means to wait and so to hope, so Hebrew hope is a waiting on God.
- Elpis (G1680) means expectation or confidence, and elpizo (G1679) means to hope or to expect.
- Elpis first stands in Acts 2:26, and 35 of its 52 uses are in Paul's letters, 13 of them in Romans.
- The lexicon gives elpis a general sense, as in a hope of making money, and a religious sense, the hope that rests on God.
A Cord Called Tiqvah
Strong's gives tiqvah a literal sense, a cord, and a figurative sense, expectancy.
Hope is one of the values Scripture asks of every believer, and a small family of Hebrew and Greek words carries it. These words run through the story of Rahab, the speeches of Job, the proverbs, the prophets and the letters of the apostles. The same words serve for a prophet's promise to a nation in exile and for an apostle's defense in chains at Rome.
The question these words answer is what the writers of the Bible meant by hope, and what made the hope they commanded sure when the same words could name a hope that failed.
unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother and brothers and all your family into your house.The cord is tied in the window before the walls of Jericho fall.
In the Hebrew the phrase is tiqvat chut ha-shani, the cord of the scarlet thread. The noun stands once more in Joshua 2:21, and in its other 32 uses tiqvah means hope.
Six Words for Hope
Batach, to trust, is the most common of the six words, with 120 uses in the Hebrew Bible.
Three of the Hebrew words are verbs of waiting and trusting, and tiqvah is the one noun among them.
| Word | Sense | Uses | A verse and the form there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew words | |||
| tiqvah, תִּקְוָה, H8615 | a cord; hope | 34 | Psalm 9:18, tiqvat, the hope of |
| qavah, קָוָה, H6960 | to await; to collect | 49 | Isaiah 40:31, ve-qovei, and those who wait for |
| yachal, יָחַל, H3176 | to wait | 41 | Lamentations 3:21, ochil, I will wait |
| batach, בָּטַח, H982 | to trust | 120 | Psalm 56:3, evtach, I will trust |
| Greek words | |||
| elpis, ἐλπίς, G1680 | hope | 52 | Romans 5:5, elpis, hope |
| elpizo, ἐλπίζω, G1679 | to hope or expect | 31 | Luke 24:21, elpizomen, were hoping |
elpis, ἐλπίς, G1680, elpizo, ἐλπίζω, G1679
Tiqvah in the Hebrew Bible
The prophets Jeremiah, Hosea and Zechariah use tiqvah for the future God promises Israel.
The tagged Hebrew text places 13 of the 34 uses of tiqvah in Job and 8 in Proverbs. In Job the word is most often a hope that is failing. Job says his days "come to an end without hope" (Job 7:6), and in Job 17:15 he asks, "where then is my hope?"
A HOPE NAOMI JUDGED IMPOSSIBLE
Naomi uses tiqvah of a husband and sons she could no longer expect, and she sends her daughters-in-law home.
HOPE FOR A FELLED TREE
Job sees tiqvah in a tree that sprouts again after it is cut down.
A HOPE THAT WILL NOT BE CUT OFF
Proverbs promises a future to the one who continues in the fear of the LORD, and the hope that will not be cut off is tiqvah.
A FUTURE AND A HOPE
The LORD's promise to the exiles in Babylon ends with ve-tiqvah, and a hope.
HOPE FOR RACHEL'S CHILDREN
The LORD answers Rachel weeping in Ramah with tiqvah, the return of her children to their own land.
PERHAPS THERE IS STILL HOPE
The poet of Lamentations uses tiqvah once, for the hope of the one who buries his face in the dust.
A hope that will not be cut off, A future and a hope, Hope for Rachel's children, Perhaps there is still hope
There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.The verse joins tiqvah to petach, which the Berean text renders gateway and the lexicon glosses entrance.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; even today I declare that I will restore to you double.Zechariah's phrase is asirei ha-tiqvah, the prisoners of the hope, with the article on the noun.
The Valley of Achor is the place where Achan was stoned after the fall of Jericho, and the book records, "Therefore that place is called the Valley of Achor to this day" (Joshua 7:26). In the verse before, Joshua plays on the name with akar, a verb the site's lexicon glosses to trouble (Joshua 7:25). So the valley Hosea names carried the memory of Achan's sin.
Three Cautions in Reading the Words
Three points the lexicons and the texts settle about the words for hope.
The cord and the root fallacyH8615 and H6960
Strong's ties tiqvah to qavah, to bind together. A word's meaning is set by how it is used, and Job, the psalms, Proverbs and the prophets use tiqvah for an expectation with no picture of a cord in the sentence.
Jeremiah 29:11 stands in a letter to exilesJeremiah 29:1 and Jeremiah 29:10 to 11
Jeremiah 29:11 is part of "the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles" (Jeremiah 29:1). The verse before it gives the time: "When Babylon's seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place" (Jeremiah 29:10). The tiqvah of verse 11 is the return God promised the nation after those years, and the verse is read in that setting before it is applied to anyone else.
Elpis can name a hope that failsG1680
The lexicon gives elpis a general sense beside its religious one. The owners of the slave girl at Philippi saw "that their hope of making money was gone" (Acts 16:19), and in the storm at sea the travellers "abandoned all hope of being saved" (Acts 27:20). The word names an expectation, and the verses around it show whether the expectation will hold.
Elpis and Elpizo in the New Testament
Elpis first stands in Peter's sermon at Pentecost, and the verb elpizo reaches into the Gospels.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell securely.David's line ends with lavetach, from betach, which the site's lexicon glosses as security.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell in hope,Peter quotes the psalm at Pentecost, and where the psalm has securely the Greek line ends with ep' elpidi, in hope.
The lexicon counts 52 uses of elpis. Paul's letters hold 35 of them, 13 in Romans, and Acts holds 8, Hebrews 5, 1 Peter 3 and 1 John 1. The four Gospels use the verb and never the noun. The verb elpizo, with 31 uses, stands five times in the Gospels. One of them is the word of the two on the Emmaus road, "But we were hoping He was the One who would redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21).
The hope of Israel in ActsActs 23:6, Acts 26:6 to 7 and Acts 28:20
The lexicon lists Acts 23:6, Acts 26:6 to 7 and Acts 28:20 under the hope of the Messiah. Before King Agrippa, Paul says he stands on trial "because of my hope in the promise that God made to our fathers" (Acts 26:6). At Rome he tells the leaders of the Jews, "It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain" (Acts 28:20). In each verse the hope is Israel's own, the promise God made to the fathers.
Hope That Rests on God
Both Testaments name God as the source of hope and as its object.
Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.The form here is tiqvati, my hope, the possessive the psalms also use in Psalm 71:5 for the singer's hope in God.
Paul writes that "hope does not disappoint us" (Romans 5:5), because God has already poured out His love into believers' hearts. The words that elsewhere name hopes that failed name a certain hope when its object is God.
Voices on the Words
Cyprian of Carthage tied hope to patient waiting in his treatise on patience.
died 258 · Cyprian
Treatise IX. On the Advantage of Patience 13
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Paul's verb elpizo stands in Romans 8:25 beside the waiting it requires.
“Patient waiting is necessary that we may fulfill what we have begun to be and, through God's help, that we may obtain what we hope for and believe.”
Cyprian · Treatise IX. On the Advantage of Patience 13 · on Romans 8:25Patristic
Books to Read Next
A concordance and a Greek lexicon a reader can open in full.
The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
James Strong · 1890
Strong numbered every Hebrew and Greek word of the Bible in this concordance, and H8615 and G1680 are his numbers for tiqvah and elpis.
Read on archive.orgA Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament
G. Abbott-Smith · 1922
The Greek glosses of the STEP Bible lexicon are based on this work.
Read on archive.orgWaiting and Hoping in One Line
The value of hope gathers these words into one teaching.
Across both Testaments these words tie hope to waiting and to trust in the promise of God, and they show the one who hopes waiting on God for what He has promised.
I wait for the LORD; my soul does wait, and in His word I put my hope.One line of the psalm holds qavah twice and yachal once, so waiting and hoping stand together in a single prayer.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESH and TBESG glosses (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), the Greek glosses based on Abbott-Smith (1922), with the Strong's definitions (1890) the rows carry.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, the tagged texts (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, with its dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original (1890)
- G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), the entry for elpis.
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Advantage of Patience, section 13, on Romans 8:25.
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