hope held as waiting: the expectation a person keeps counting on while what they are waiting for has not yet come
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This noun is built on the verb for waiting (יָחַל), and the connection shows. Hebrew's ordinary word for hope (תִּקְוָה) pictures a cord pulled taut toward what lies ahead. This rarer word keeps the clock in view instead: it is hope with time passing, an expectation a person has to go on holding while nothing has happened yet.
Four of its six uses come from the wisdom writers, who are interested in one question about hope: does it hold up?
The waiting of an upright person ends in gladness, while a wicked man's expectation dies when he does.
The man who imagines he can land Leviathan is told his expectation is a lie before he begins.
Waiting itself can be the injury: hope stretched out too long, Proverbs says, makes the heart sick.
The other two uses are prayers, and both turn the word toward God. In Psalm 39 a man who has found everything else empty says his waiting is for the Lord and no one else. In Lamentations 3 the speaker says at his lowest point that his waiting on the Lord is finished, then a few lines later takes it back. Between the proverbs and the prayers the word makes one point twice over: this kind of hope is worth exactly as much as whatever it is resting on.
Nuances
1aan expectation of something good, held while it is still out of reach and open to failing
Job 41:9(1)Pro 10:28Pro 11:7Pro 13:12
1bhope with God as its object: waiting on the Lord himself for what no one else can give
It is built out of the language of waiting, so the time a person spends holding on is part of the word itself.Pro 13:12
It can be flatly false and still be this kind of hope, because the word names the expectation and says nothing about whether it is sound.Job 41:9Pro 11:7
Both
Both name a leaning toward some future good that has not arrived yet.Pro 10:28
Both can be placed in a person rather than in an outcome.Psa 39:7
Only hope
In everyday English "hope" often shades toward a wish about something unlikely, which drains away the confidence the Hebrew assumes.
English "hope" sounds automatically good, so a reader can miss that the same word also covers expectations that deserve to collapse.
The Hebrew always looks toward something wanted, never toward an outcome a person dreads.Pro 10:28
Both
Both name an outcome a person is counting on before it has arrived.Pro 11:7
Only expectation
English "expectation" can sound like a cool forecast, and it can even name something feared, neither of which this word does.
“prospect”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How toḥelet differs from similar Hebrew words
תִּקְוָהthe ordinary and far more common noun for hope, built on a different verb for waiting and picturing a cord drawn tight toward what is ahead, without the stress on time dragging on that this word carries.
Belongs strictly to poetry and wisdom writing (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Lamentations) and never turns up in narrative or the prophetic books.Job 41:9Psa 39:7Pro 13:12Lam 3:18
Carries the note of hope drawn out and put off, stretched so long that the waiting heart grows sick.Pro 13:12
Names only the inner attitude of expectant hope itself, never any physical object.Psa 39:7Pro 10:28
Both
Both name confident, forward-looking hope and stand as interchangeable partners in parallel poetic lines, one word answering the other.Pro 10:28Pro 11:7
Either word can describe a hope that perishes or is cut off, above all the doomed expectation of the wicked.Pro 11:7Lam 3:18Job 8:13
Both can name a hope that rests on God himself as its ground.Psa 39:7Psa 71:5Jer 29:11
Also names a literal object, the twisted cord or line, such as Rahab's scarlet cord let down from the window, the concrete picture of something stretched out from which its sense of hope grows.Jos 2:18Jos 2:21
Is the ordinary, all-purpose word for hope, reaching well beyond poetry into everyday narrative and prophetic promise.Rut 1:12Hos 2:15Zec 9:12
Can name a hoped-for future or destiny held out to a whole people, the promise of an outcome still ahead of them.Jer 29:11Jer 31:17Ezk 37:11
מִקְוֶהanother rare noun for hope, which usually names the one being waited on rather than the waiting itself, and which serves as a title for the Lord.
It names the waiting itself and the wear that delay puts on a person, so when it is stretched out the heart grows sick.Pro 13:12
It weighs how someone's waiting will finally turn out, ending in gladness for one person and dying with another.Pro 10:28Pro 11:7
It is what a sufferer says has been wrecked, or what turns out to have been false from the start.Lam 3:18Job 41:9
Both
Both are rendered "hope" and name a confident looking forward to something not yet in hand, and both can be flatly denied: the hope is gone, or was never there.1Ch 29:15Pro 11:7
Both are used of hope that rests on the LORD rather than on circumstances, so losing him is losing the hope.Jer 17:13Psa 39:7
It can name the one who is waited on rather than the waiting, so God himself is spoken to directly as the hope of his people.Jer 14:8Jer 17:13Jer 50:7
The same word is an ordinary term for water gathered into one place, which is where its picture of hope comes from: something collected and held ready.Gen 1:10Exo 7:19Lev 11:36
It can stand with nobody named as the one hoping, simply stating that in this situation there is hope, or that there is none.Ezr 10:21Ch 29:15
יָחַלthe verb this noun is built from: the act of waiting for someone, where this word is the settled expectation that the waiting holds on to.
It names hope as something a person owns and can therefore lose. It dies along with the wicked man who held it, and a sufferer can say flatly that his own hope is finished, which is language for a possession destroyed rather than an activity stopped.Pro 11:7Lam 3:18
Being a thing rather than an act, it can carry a general rule about hope itself, stated about nobody in particular: the wisdom writers say what an upright person's hope will end in, the way they would state any proverb.Pro 10:28
It can act on the person holding it. Hope stretched out too long is what makes the heart sick, so the waiting itself becomes the injury, something the verb never says.Pro 13:12
Both
Both name expectation set on the Lord himself, and one poem uses both for the same waiting: the sufferer says his hope in the Lord has perished, then a few lines later takes it back and says he waits for him still.Lam 3:18Lam 3:21Psa 39:7Psa 130:5
Neither word promises that the hope is well placed. Both are used of expectation that comes to nothing: a man waits for light and darkness comes, false prophets get people waiting on a word God never sent, and one man's hope of hauling in Leviathan is called a lie before he begins.Job 30:26Ezk 13:6Job 41:9
It covers plain waiting that has nothing to do with hope: letting a fixed stretch of time run out before acting, as when Noah lets another week pass before sending the dove again, or when Saul is told to hold off seven days until Samuel comes. The noun is never used for simply waiting out a period.Gen 8:121Sa 10:81Sa 13:8
Because it names something a person does, it can be commanded. Israel is told to wait on the Lord, and a downcast man turns and orders his own soul to hope in God. The noun cannot be told to do anything.Psa 130:7Psa 131:3Psa 42:5
Its object can be another human being or that person's words: Job's hearers waited for him to speak, and Job in turn waited out the speeches of his friends. The noun never names the one being waited on, only the expectation the waiting holds.Job 29:21Job 32:11
קָוָהthe more common verb for waiting on something, which stands beside this noun in Psalm 39:7 and stresses the looking toward rather than the time spent.
Names the hope as a thing a person owns, which can therefore die with its owner or be reported as simply gone.Pro 11:7Lam 3:18
Because it is a thing rather than an action, it can be described and measured: a hope drawn out too long makes the heart sick.Pro 13:12
Sorts people by what their hope comes to: the hope of those who live rightly ends in gladness, set against the expectation of the wicked that dies out.Pro 10:28
Both
Both lean toward something not yet in hand, and Psalm 39:7 sets them side by side in one breath: the question "what do I wait for?" is answered "my hope is in you."Psa 39:7
Either one can be fixed on the LORD himself rather than on a circumstance, so both can be spoken directly to God.Psa 130:5Lam 3:18
Both can come to nothing, and the text says so plainly: one waits for good and evil arrives, or a hope of subduing the great beast is exposed as false.Job 30:26Job 41:9
Names the act itself, something a person does, so it can be commanded and answered with a promise: wait for the LORD and take courage, and those who wait find their strength renewed.Psa 27:14Isa 40:31
Takes its object directly, so the text can say exactly who or what is being waited for: God's rescue, the LORD himself, all day long.Gen 49:18Psa 25:5Psa 130:5
God can be the one doing the waiting: he looked for his vineyard to yield good grapes and asks why it produced sour ones instead.Isa 5:2Isa 5:4
The same written word also covers plain physical gathering, with no waiting or hoping in view at all: the waters collected into one place at creation.Gen 1:9
תַּאֲוָהthe craving or longing itself, set opposite this word in Proverbs 13:12, where the desire that finally arrives heals what the drawn-out waiting had made sick.
Waiting is built into it: the word looks ahead to something not yet in hand, and the strain of the delay is part of what it names. The psalmist asks what he is waiting for and answers that his waiting is set on God; the sufferer in Lamentations says his waiting has died.Psa 39:7Lam 3:18
Names the confidence a person is counting on, which can be shown to be baseless. Anyone who thinks he can take Leviathan is holding a false expectation, and the wicked person's confidence dies with him.Job 41:9Pro 11:7
Never describes an appetite of the body. There is no hungering or thirsting in this word, only the settled expectation of an outcome, which is why its natural fruit is gladness when it lands.Pro 10:28Psa 39:7
Both
Both name something the heart leans toward that has not arrived yet, and Proverbs 13:12 sets them directly opposite each other: the waiting that drags on makes the heart sick, while the longing that finally comes is a tree of life.Pro 13:12
Both can be aimed at God himself, so neither is only about wanting created things: the longing of the soul is for his name, and the waiting of the psalmist rests on him alone.Isa 26:8Psa 39:7
Both can come to nothing, and the wicked are the standing example: their craving perishes and their expectation dies, while what the righteous reach for is granted.Psa 112:10Pro 11:23Pro 11:7Pro 10:28
Names bodily appetite: the hunger and thirst of the body, and the greed that comes with it. In the wilderness the people craved meat, ate until they were stuffed, and the craving itself is what the text names.Num 11:4Psa 78:29Psa 106:14Job 33:20
Can name the thing wanted and not only the wanting, so it slides from the craving to its object: the fruit that looked good to the eye, or the very thing God grants a king.Gen 3:6Psa 21:2Pro 10:24
Often carries a moral charge, describing a want that reaches for what is not its own or refuses the work that would satisfy it: the boasting of the greedy, the lazy person whose craving kills him, the wicked whose appetite is never full.Psa 10:3Pro 21:25Pro 21:26Pro 18:1
toḥelet in the other biblical languages
ἐλπίςGreek“hope”the standard Greek word for hope, which the New Testament turns into a settled confidence anchored in God, where the Hebrew word keeps in view the waiting that has not yet ended.
It keeps the strain of unfinished waiting in view. Hope stretched out too long is said to make the heart sick, and the question "what do I wait for?" is asked from inside the waiting rather than after it has been answered.Pro 13:12Psa 39:7
It can be pronounced dead, even when it was hope set on the LORD: a sufferer says his hope from the LORD has perished, and a wise saying states plainly that when a wicked man dies his hope dies with him.Lam 3:18Pro 11:7
Every one of its six occurrences sits in poetry or wisdom writing and concerns one person's own hope, weighed for where it will end up, so it never hardens into a term for something a whole people share.Pro 10:28Psa 39:7Lam 3:18
Both
Both are an ordinary word for hope aimed at God, which is why English Bibles render both as "hope": the psalmist tells God "my hope is in you", and Peter says God raised Jesus so that his readers' faith and hope would rest in God.Psa 39:71Pe 1:21
Both reach for something not yet in hand. Hebrew speaks of hope put off and still pending, and Greek states the same limit outright: what a person can already see is not hope at all, so hope always has waiting built into it.Pro 13:12Rom 8:24
Either word can name a hope that comes to nothing. Hebrew uses it for the empty expectation of anyone who thinks he can master the great sea creature, and Greek uses it for hope of profit that vanished and hope of survival abandoned in a storm.Job 41:9Act 16:19Act 27:20
In the New Testament this word normally names a confidence treated as secure, so writers can say outright that it does not put the one who holds it to shame, that God gave it as a firm encouragement meant to be held without wavering, and that it is alive because Jesus was raised.Rom 5:5Heb 6:181Pe 1:3
It often names the thing hoped for rather than the act of hoping: something already kept safe in heaven, an appearing still awaited, and even a person, so that Christ himself can be called "our hope" and "the hope of glory".Col 1:5Tit 2:131Ti 1:1Col 1:27
It describes something a whole community holds together rather than one person's private outlook: there is "one hope" belonging to their calling, it stands beside faith and love as a mark of Christian life, and its absence is what marks people outside God's promises and those who grieve with nothing ahead of them.Eph 4:41Co 13:13Eph 2:121Th 4:13
What scholars say about toḥelet
The standard lexica treat תּוֹחֶלֶת as a nominal formation from the root יחל and gloss it uniformly "hope, expectation" (BDB; HALOT; DCH), with no competing lexical proposal on offer. Its six occurrences cluster in wisdom (Prov 10:28; 11:7; 13:12; Job 41:1 MT, numbered 41:9 in English versions) and in individual lament (Ps 39:8 MT, numbered 39:7; Lam 3:18), and the two settings account for the difference in orientation: the wisdom instances evaluate an expectation's durability, while the lament instances name YHWH himself as the one waited upon. Zimmerli's study of Old Testament hope vocabulary and the theological-dictionary articles on יחל both stress that the יחל group foregrounds the temporal dimension of waiting, over against the more frequent קוה group that lies behind תִּקְוָה. Commentators note two textual difficulties adjacent to the word that do not disturb its sense: the second colon of Prov 11:7, where אוֹנִים has invited emendation and where the Septuagint diverges (Waltke; Fox), and the antecedent of the suffix in Job 41:1 MT, generally taken as the would-be captor rather than the creature (Clines). At Lam 3:18 the force of מִן in וְתוֹחַלְתִּי מֵיְהוָה is construed either as source or as object of expectation (Berlin), a distinction that leaves the referent unchanged.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. תּוֹחֶלֶתlexicon
BDB, s.v. תּוֹחֶלֶתlexicon
DCH, s.v. תּוֹחֶלֶתlexicon
TWOT, s.v. יחלtheological-dictionary
NIDOTTE, s.v. יחלtheological-dictionary
Walther Zimmerli, Man and His Hope in the Old Testament, Studies in Biblical Theology 2/20 (SCM Press, 1971)monograph
Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15, NICOT (Eerdmans, 2004)commentary
Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Yale Bible 18B (Yale University Press, 2009)commentary
David J. A. Clines, Job 38-42, Word Biblical Commentary 18B (Thomas Nelson, 2011)commentary
Adele Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Westminster John Knox, 2002)commentary