Hope rests on God, not on how things look: “my hope comes from Him”, and “hope does not disappoint us”. In Jeremiah 29:11, the Hebrew word is tiqvah (H8615): hope: the thing you wait for and expect. It is the Old Testament’s main word for hope.
Get DeepWordWhat the original says
Behind the word “hope” in this verse is the Hebrew word tiqvah (said teek-VAH).
It means hope: the thing you wait for and expect. It is the Old Testament’s main word for hope.
This form, vetiqvah, is ‘and’ (וְ) joined to the word: “and a hope”. It is the last word of the verse in Hebrew, right after the word for “a future”.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 31 times. Proverbs uses it with the same word for future: “For surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off” (Proverbs 23:18):
Word by word
| שָׁלוֹם | וְלֹא | לְרָעָה | לָתֵת | לָכֶם | אַחֲרִית | וְתִקְוָה |
| well-being | and · not | for · harm | to · give | to · you | a future | and · a hope |
Original form
What this tells us
This verse is part of a letter. Jeremiah sent it “to the surviving elders among the exiles” (Jeremiah 29:1), people carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon, far from everything they knew. Other prophets were telling them they would be home soon, and the LORD warned, “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you” (Jeremiah 29:8). Jeremiah’s message was harder: “Build houses and settle down” (Jeremiah 29:5). The promise comes only after the long wait is named: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you” (Jeremiah 29:10). The word for “hope” is tiqvah: hope, the thing you wait for. Here it comes last, tied to the word before it: “a future and a hope.” The hope was real, but many of the first people to hear this letter would not live to see the seventy years end. It was a hope for their children, and for God’s people as a whole. That is why the next verses matter as much as this one: “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you” (Jeremiah 29:12). Christians read this verse in different ways, some as God’s promise to Israel in exile that shows his heart for all his people, others as a word they can also take for their own lives. Either way, hope here is not a promise that things will be easy soon. It is a promise that God has not forgotten you, even in a place you would never have chosen.
What the original says
Behind the word “cord” in this verse is the Hebrew word tiqvah (said teek-VAH), the same word that usually means hope.
Here it means a cord, a length of rope. Strong’s gives it two senses, a cord and hope.
This form, tiqvat, is tied to the next word, meaning ‘cord of’: word for word, ‘the cord of the thread of scarlet’. The Berean puts it as “this scarlet cord”.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘cord’ only 2 times, both in this chapter, and ‘hope’ 31 times. Job uses it for a tree: “For there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again” (Job 14:7):
Word by word
| בָאִים | בָּאָרֶץ | אֶת | תִּקְוַת | חוּט | הַשָּׁנִי | הַזֶּה |
| about to come | in the · land | obj | cord of | thread of | the · scarlet | this |
Original form
What this tells us
Two Israelite spies have come into Jericho and hidden in the house of “a prostitute named Rahab” (Joshua 2:1). She has heard what the LORD has done, and she says, “the LORD your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:11). She asks for one thing in return for hiding them: “please swear to me by the LORD that you will indeed show kindness to my family” (Joshua 2:12). The cord is the sign they give her. The word for “cord” is tiqvah, the same word that means hope in almost every other place it appears. Strong’s joins the two senses as one word; many other dictionaries treat them as two words that happen to sound the same. Either way, one Hebrew word stands behind both, and here it is a red cord hanging from a window. Rahab did as they said: “she tied the scarlet cord in the window” (Joshua 2:21). When Jericho fell, “Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her father’s household and all who belonged to her” (Joshua 6:25). Her name appears again in the family line of Jesus (Matthew 1:5), and Hebrews remembers her: “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies in peace, did not perish” (Hebrews 11:31). Rahab’s past did not put her outside of hope. If yours feels like it should, notice whose family she ended up in.
What the original says
Behind the words “my hope” in this verse is the Hebrew word tiqvah (said teek-VAH).
It is the same word, tiqvah: hope, what you wait for and expect.
This form, tiqvati, has ‘my’ joined to the end: my hope. It is the last word of the verse. The verse begins with a command to the soul, word for word ‘only to God be silent, my soul’.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 31 times. Zechariah calls God’s people “prisoners of hope” (Zechariah 9:12):
Word by word
| אַךְ | לֵאלֹהִים | דּוֹמִּי | נַפְשִׁי | כִּי | מִמֶּנּוּ | תִּקְוָתִי |
| only | to · God | be silent | o self · my | for | that from · him | hope · my |
Original form
What this tells us
Psalm 62 is the prayer of someone under pressure. People are trying to bring him down: “How long will you threaten a man? Will all of you throw him down like a leaning wall or a tottering fence?” (Psalm 62:3). The writer keeps coming back to one place: “In God alone my soul finds rest; my salvation comes from Him” (Psalm 62:1). This verse repeats that line, but changes the last part: rest, and now hope. The word for “hope” is tiqvah, here with ‘my’ joined to it: my hope. The Berean begins the verse, “Rest in God alone, O my soul”, and word for word the Hebrew says ‘be silent’. Hope in this psalm is quiet. The soul stops arguing with itself and waits for God. The psalm goes on: “He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will not be shaken” (Psalm 62:6). Then it turns to everyone listening: “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge” (Psalm 62:8). Talking to your own soul like this is something the psalms do often. It is one of the ways they pray. Where is your hope coming from right now? This psalm does not tell you to feel hopeful. It tells your soul where to look, and to wait there.
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Download on the App StoreWhat the original says
Behind the words “still hope” in this verse is the Hebrew word tiqvah (said teek-VAH).
It is the same word, tiqvah: hope. Here it is a small hope, spoken from a very low place.
This form, tiqvah, is the plain noun, the last word of the verse. Before it come two small words, ‘perhaps there is’: the hope is offered carefully, not promised loudly.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 31 times. Naomi, a widow far from home, uses it when she thinks she has none left: “Even if I thought there was hope for me” (Ruth 1:12):
Word by word
| יִתֵּן | בֶּעָפָר | פִּיהוּ | אוּלַי | יֵשׁ | תִּקְוָה |
| let him put | in the · dust | mouth · his | perhaps | there | hope |
Original form
What this tells us
Lamentations is a book of grief for Jerusalem after it fell. It opens, “How lonely lies the city, once so full of people!” (Lamentations 1:1). In chapter 3 one man speaks of his own suffering, and then, right in the middle of it, he turns: “Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope” (Lamentations 3:21). He goes on, “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him” (Lamentations 3:25). The word for “hope” in this verse is tiqvah, and it comes with a small, honest word before it: “perhaps there is still hope.” The writer pictures someone face down in the dust, who cannot yet say more than ‘perhaps’. The Bible does not scold him for that. It writes it down. Just before, he says, “Let him sit alone in silence, for God has disciplined him” (Lamentations 3:28), and a little earlier, “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:26). Hope here is not loud. It is like one small lamp left on in a dark house: it does not light every room, but it shows you that someone is home. If all you can manage today is ‘perhaps’, you are in good company. That word is in the Bible too, and God was listening to the one who said it.
What the original says
Behind the words “of hope” in this verse is the Hebrew word tiqvah (said teek-VAH).
It is the same word, tiqvah: hope. Here it is joined to a place, a door of hope in a valley of trouble.
This form, tiqvah, is the plain noun. The word before it means ‘a door of’, so word for word the line reads ‘for a door of hope’. The Berean puts it as “a gateway of hope”.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 31 times, and it is in 33 verses in all:
Word by word
| עֵמֶק | עָכוֹר | לְפֶתַח | תִּקְוָה | וְעָנְתָה | שָּׁמָּה | כִּימֵי |
| valley of | Achor | to · a door of | hope | and · she will answer | there | like · days of |
Original form
What this tells us
Hosea’s marriage became a picture of God and his people. God told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife” (Hosea 1:2), and his wife was unfaithful, the way Israel had been unfaithful to the LORD. Chapter 2 is full of judgment, and then it turns to tenderness: “I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly” (Hosea 2:14). The word for “hope” is tiqvah, and the place it is joined to matters: “the Valley of Achor”. That valley was where Israel remembered a dark day, when Joshua asked, “Why have you brought this trouble upon us?” (Joshua 7:25), and the name Achor sounds like the Hebrew word for trouble. God promises to make that very valley “a gateway of hope”. The verse goes on: “There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.” The picture is of a love starting over, back at the beginning. Think of a dead-end street you have walked down many times, and one day you find a gate at the end of it that was never there before. God does not only bring hope after the trouble is over. In this verse he builds the door right inside the valley of trouble.
What the original says
Behind the word “hope” in this verse is the Greek word elpis (said el-PEES).
It means hope: confident expectation of something good. Strong’s also gives ‘confidence’.
This form, elpis, is the subject of the sentence: hope is what does not disappoint. The verb after it, kataischynei, means to put to shame: hope will not leave us embarrassed that we trusted.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 50 times, as in “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13):
Word by word
| ἡ | δὲ | ἐλπὶς | οὐ | καταισχύνει | ὅτι | ἡ |
| the | and | hope | not | does make ashamed | because | the |
Original form
What this tells us
Paul has just said, “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1). Then he says something surprising: “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Hope, in this chain, is something that grows through hard things, not around them. The word for “hope” is elpis: confident expectation. Paul says this hope “does not disappoint us”, and word for word, it does not put us to shame. It will not leave you standing there, embarrassed that you believed. Some hopes let people down. This one, Paul says, will not. The reason is not that the suffering stops. It is something God has already done: “God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” Hope rests on a love already given, not only on a future no one can see yet. Later in the same letter Paul says, “hope that is seen is no hope at all” (Romans 8:24), and “if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:25). Your hope may feel thin today. This verse says it is held up by something heavier than your feelings: the love of God, already poured into you.
What the original says
Behind the word “hope” in this verse is the Greek word elpis (said el-PEES).
It is the same word, elpis: hope, confident expectation. Here it is called a living hope.
This form, elpida, follows eis, ‘into’: God gave us new birth into a hope. The word after it, zōsan, “living”, is shaped to match it.
In the Berean Standard Bible, it is ‘hope’ 50 times. Hebrews says, “Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23):
Word by word
| ἀναγεννήσας | ἡμᾶς | εἰς | ἐλπίδα | ζῶσαν | δι᾽ | ἀναστάσεως |
| having begotten again | us | to | a hope | living | through | resurrection |
Original form
What this tells us
Peter writes to Christians scattered far from home, many of them suffering for their faith. A few lines after this verse he admits they “may have had to suffer grief in various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). Yet he opens with praise anyway: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” The word for “hope” is elpis, and Peter gives it an unusual description: “a living hope.” It is alive because someone is alive: it comes “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This hope does not depend on things going well. It depends on something that already happened. Paul says the same in his own way: “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Firstfruits are the first part of a harvest, a sign that the rest is coming. Hebrews uses another picture: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). An anchor does not stop the waves. It keeps the boat from drifting away while they pass. Hope in the Bible is not wishing that things will work out. It is tied to an empty tomb, and it is meant to hold you while you wait.
Behind "hope" are 13 different words
Your English Bible says "hope" 161 times. Behind it stand several Hebrew and Greek words:
Reflect
Read it as yours
Psalm 62 talks to the soul. Read this line slowly, as if you were saying it to your own:
Name it
Where has your hope worn thin? Write it down, and then write one thing God has already done that your hope can rest on.
Carry with you
If your hope rested on what God has already done instead of on how things look this week, what would change?
A note
Losing hope for a long time is worth taking seriously. If it will not lift, talking with a doctor, a counselor or a pastor can help, and you do not have to wait until it gets worse.