Clinging to Hope
The Hebrew language opens a richer picture of hope, showing biblical waiting as an active clinging to God and His promises.
Read Time: 4 minutes
One of the fascinating things about the Hebrew language is the size of its vocabulary. While English has up to a million words in its vocabulary, Hebrew has only about 85,000. Due to its root-based system, the language is very flexible in the meaning of words across different contexts. Biblical Hebrew contains even fewer unique words! There are about 9,000 one-of-a-kind root words used throughout the Old Testament. Hebrew is built on a small base vocabulary, but prefixes and suffixes can create vast variations to the root word.
This difference in vocabulary size means there is a depth and richness to the Hebrew text that the English translation cannot always convey. It is not always possible to convey the same Hebrew root word using one English root word. This anomaly can lead us to miss the connections between different Bible passages. The Bible is written as a web of connections among families of Hebrew words woven into the text.
Similarly, many Hebrew root words are not abstract or theoretical concepts. Instead, they are rooted in the reality of the simple actions of daily life. One example of this is the Hebrew word “kaveh,” often translated in the Hebrew Bible as “to wait.” This word is used in Isaiah 25:9, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is Yahweh; we have waited for him.”
Gesenius tells us that this word comes from the idea of twisting or binding together, like a rope. The word “kaveh” comes from “kav,” meaning “rope” (cp. “line” in 1 Kings 7:23 and Zechariah 1:16, and “measuring line” in Jeremiah 31:39). The niphal form (a passive verbal form) of this word could be translated as “to gather together.” For example, Jeremiah prophecized: “They shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it.” (Jeremiah 3:17). Interestingly, the word for “gather” is the niphal form of the same word “kaveh” translated as “wait” in Isaiah. How are these two ideas connected? What does this Hebrew root word teach us about what it means to “wait” for the God of Israel in our lives?
The Hebrew word seems to contain an enacted parable that demonstrates what it means to “wait” for something in the Bible. The Hebrew root is based on the idea of twisting different strands of a rope together. The abstract concept of “waiting” is conveyed using the parable of clinging to a rope or cord.
For example, the same root word is used in the story of Rahab: “Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.” (Joshua 2:18). The word “line” is “tikvah” in Hebrew, coming from the same word “kaveh”, meaning, “to wait”. In this passage, the letter “t” (tav) is added to the front of the word. This turns the verb into an abstract noun—a thing or concept. The verb “to wait” becomes the noun, “line” in Joshua. There are lots of examples of words that follow the same pattern, including:
“Shuv” [to return] becomes “teshuvah” [repentance]
“Palal” [to pray, judge] becomes “tefillah” [prayer]
In a very real sense, Rahab’s cord was her hope! It represented that she had chosen to wait on the God of Israel rather than be destroyed with the evil inhabitants of Jericho. The word “tikveh” is also the Hebrew word for hope. Therefore, in Hebrew, to wait or hope for something should be connected with the physical picture of clinging to a rope. Waiting for the God of Israel (as Isaiah 25:9 describes) could be seen as being thrown a rope when sinking in the mire.
The Hope of Israel, when understood in its appropriate Hebrew context, is about a rope that many faithful men and women have clung to throughout the ages. It is a rope that transcends time and location and ultimately stems from God himself who is styled as the “Hope of Israel” in Jeremiah 17:13. In Acts 28:20, the same phrase can be found: “For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain”. There are several examples in Scripture of how the Greek of the New Testament makes various wordplays based on Hebrew. The words of the Apostle Paul in this passage may well be an example of this. The phrase “Hope of Israel” is clearly an Old Testament quotation from Jeremiah 14:8 and 17:13. In both cases, a form of the word kaveh is used. Since this word is based on the idea of twisting or binding cords together, is it any coincidence that Paul picks up on the same concept? He explains that he was “bound” for the Hope of Israel. The juxtaposition of these two words might be a play on words, expressing what “waiting” for something really means!
Living the hope of Israel is about making the conscious choice each day to actively cling to the rope God has provided. Perhaps it would be too cheesy to call this the “Rope of Hope”!
“Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee.” (Isaiah 26:8). Waiting for God is about an active way of life that is shaped by his judgments affecting the way we live.
We should recognize that God created the Hebrew language to add almost infinite depth and beauty to His Word, just as creation reflects God’s glory and intricate design. Just like a person may be subtly different depending on the scenario, so the same is true for Hebrew words. The same word, although staying fundamentally the same, will furnish different shades of meaning depending on the context of the passage and the form of the word. Whether we are learning Hebrew or not, we should all be mindful to give God’s Word the reverence it deserves and remember that there is depth and meaning in every word within it.
Daniel Blackburn,
Woodgate Ecclesia, UK