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Yaash. To be desperate, despairing. `There is no hope' (Jer. 2:25).
The margin reads `is the case desperate?' This word is not, strictly speaking,
one that should be included under the heading `hope' as it is its very denial.
Although we have listed ten Hebrew words, there are really but seven, as
some are derivatives from a common root. To complete this survey of the terms
used in the Old Testament we give a list of the words, in addition to those
already cited, which the LXX translates by elpizo and elpis.
Psa. 22:8
`He trusted', Hebrew galal, `to roll, to devolve upon'.
Isa. 11:10 `The Gentiles seek', Hebrew darash, `to seek, enquire,
require'.
(This passage is quoted in Romans 15:12 where the LXX rendering elpizo is
adopted).
Gen. 4:26
`Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord'.
The LXX reads, `He hoped to call on the name of the Lord God'.
This, as the A.V. margin shows, is a highly problematical
passage, into which we cannot here enter.
Psa. 91:14 `Because he hath set his love upon Me'.
The LXX reads, `For he has hoped in Me'.
Jer. 44:14 `They have a desire to return', Hebrew nasa, `to lift up'.
This, in the LXX in chapter 51:14, `to which they hope in their
souls to return'.
2 Chron. 13:18
`They relied upon the Lord', Hebrew shaan.
LXX reads, `They trusted on the Lord'.
Isa. 18:7
`A nation meted out', Hebrew qav.
LXX reads, `A nation hoping' because of the use of tiqvah, see
above.
Isa. 28:10 `Line upon line', Hebrew qav.
LXX reads, `hope upon hope', where again they have this figure in
view.
Ezek. 36:8 `They are at hand to come', Hebrew qarab, `to be near'.
LXX reads, `They are hoping to come'.
Isa. 28:18 `Your agreement with hell shall not stand', Hebrew chazuth,
`vision'.
LXX reads, `Your trust toward hades shall by no means stand'.
2 Chron. 35:26
`The acts of Josiah and his goodness', Hebrew chesed,
`kindness'.
LXX reads, `The acts of Josiah and his hope'.
Job 30:15
`My soul as the wind, Hebrew nedibah, `noble one'.
LXX reads, `My hope is gone like the wind'.
Isa. 31:2
`Help', Hebrew azar.
LXX, `hope'.
(Too complicated to set out fully here.)
Isa. 24:16 `Glory to the righteous', Hebrew tsebi, `beauty, desire'.
LXX reads, `Hope to the godly'.
Psa. 60:8
`Moab is my washpot', Hebrew sir rachats.
LXX reads, `Moab is the caldron of my hope'.
This has been an exhausting search, and it would be still more so to
attempt to unravel all the problems that these translations from the LXX
involve. The result of this review, however, enables us to see that `hope' was
not only confidence and trust, expectation and desire, but that in the mind of
those who wrote Greek, the words elpis and elpizo include such terms as `to set
one's love', hence Paul's glorious statement in his last epistle concerning
those `that love His appearing'. To be lifted up as it were on tip -toe of
expectancy finds its echo in the eager stretching forth that we read of in