Words of Hope

A Word Study on the Biblical Word "Hope"

Study #18 - A Collective Hope

At the beginning of our study on the Biblical word "hope" we stated that we would be looking at the various synonyms found in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament and then at the various scriptures where those synonyms are found.  So far we have only considered the Hebrew word "tiqwa" as expressing a confident hope.  Our second synonym of hope we want to look at is the Hebrew word "miqweh" or "miqveh" (Strong's #4723).  According to most Hebrew scholars, both tiqwa and miqweh come from the same root word - "qawa".  This root word is most often translated as "wait" or as "expectation" in the King James Version of the English Bible (an interesting study in itself since the Bible has much to say about "waiting" on the Lord).  This fact also reveals that these two words for "hope" have a strong connotation of waiting and of looking with expectation for that which is hoped for.  We will consider this aspect of hope in future studies.  But how are tiqwa and miqweh to be distinguished?  The nature of synonyms is that they basically mean the same thing.  Sometimes there is a clear distinction between them, sometimes it is very subtle, and sometimes it is not at all evident.  We have been considering tiqwa as expressing a confident hope in part because of its association with a cord or rope that was made up of strands twisted together for increased strength (see study #3 posted on 2/10/2013).  It is now interesting to find that miqweh also is associated with things that are collected or bound together in some way.  This, in fact, seems to be its most basic meaning.  For example, in Genesis 1:10 the word "miqweh" is used to express the "gathering together" of the waters into seas on the third day of creation.  In Exodus 7:19 it is translated as "pools" and refers to the waters that were to be turned into blood during the first plague against Egypt.  And in Leviticus 11:36 it describes the "plenty" of water found in a fountain or pit.  In all of these places water is "gathered together" in some way or another.  One occurence of the word "miqweh" has caused a lot of debate among Bible translators and commentators.  In I Kings 10:28 and its parallel in II Chronicles 1:16 we read about Solomon's acquiring of horses from Egypt as a part of his great wealth.  The King James Version translates the word "miqweh" in these verses as "linen yarn" both times it occurs.  This translation of course would be in keeping with the root idea of a "twisted cord" of some type, but many find this to be somewhat out of place in the context of purchasing horses.  Most modern English versions of the Bible follow the Septuagint Version in this place rather than trying to translate the Hebrew.  The Septuagint took the word "miqweh" here as the name of a second source from which Solomon bought his horses - variously rendered as Kue (NASB, NIV) or as Keveh (NKJV) thought to be a region of Cilicia.  The Hebrew scholar Gesenius, however, argued that the idea of a "collection" should be maintained.  He suggested the translation "and the company of the royal merchants (out of Egypt) took the troop (of horses) at a price."  In other words there was a collective group of buyers who purchased this collective herd of horses for Solomon.  And so "miqweh" can refer to a gathering together of water, of merchants, or of horses.  So how does this collective idea transfer over to concept of hope?  Perhaps it once again conveys the idea of collective strength just like the twisted strands of a rope. Or perhaps it could refer to the collective hope of a group of people.  I may be stretching the idea here a little and I haven't found anyone else who mentions this possibility, but there are only five times that miqweh can be translated as "hope" in the Old Testament and all five of them refer to the hope of a collective group in some way.  I will list them here with only a few comments and will deal with some of them more fully in future posts:

I Chronicles 29:15 - "For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."  Here the word miqweh is translated as "abiding" in the KJV to express the idea that the lives of all men are fragile and brief - no one can hope to continue to live forever.  There is no collective hope among men or any certain expectation of living in this world of sin and death. Indeed there is no hope for mankind apart from God, His mercy and His grace.

Ezra 10:2 - "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing."  Once again the collective nation of Israel was in violation of God's law, but there was a collective hope for the nation if they would come together in dealing with this situation. 

Jeremiah 14:8 - "O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?"  This is a portion of the intercessions of Jeremiah for the nation of Israel.  Here he calls upon the Lord as The Hope of Israel forming a divine title expressing the collective hope of the nation.

Jeremiah 17:13 - "O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters."  Again Jeremiah addresses the LORD as the collective hope of Israel and gives his denunciation of any who may deny Him as such.

Jeremiah 50:7 - "All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers."  Here even the enemies of Israel recognized the collective hope of the nation was the LORD and stated their justification in conquering them since they had collectively sinned against their own God!  We will look more closely at this aspect of hope in our next study.