What does the word, hope, mean to you? We bandy the word about, hear it in passages
like “faith, hope, and charity” but how do those first two words differ, for
instance? I realized recently that I had never really defined
it for myself. Have you? I think that is a good project for January,
particularly in an election year, when we’ll probably hear a lot about it! Let me share some of my thoughts on the
etymology of the word and its use in the Bible – a book that’s all about hope -
in order to encourage you to determine
your own definition and to think about what other people may mean when they use
the word.
In my mind, hope is weaker than faith or belief. Like the story of Pandora’s box, hope arises
as a positive antidote to the impediments of life. Children, for example just want, they don’t
hope, because they don’t yet sense the possibility of “no.” If I express a sentiment like, “I hope that
Mom will get better” that is vaguer than “I believe she will” or “I have faith or
confidence that she will.” You can see
that my impression of the word is rather lame and floppy, so political rhetoric
about “hope and change” or “hope and progress” make me roll my eyes. They seem like easy platitudes to trot out
with Uncle Sam and apple pie.
However, I realize that people use the word in different
ways than I do and I wondered if that was true historically, too. If so, that might change my interpretation of
significant documents.
The etymology of the English word, hope, is unknown, but it seems
to be from a North European, Germanic source that may have something to do with
the English word, hop. I love that
connection. It suggests that hope does
not mean something I can reach from where I stand; rather I have to take a
little leap toward the object of hope in order to reach it or perhaps even to
see it.
What about in the Bible?
That book is full of hope for the Promised Land in the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament) and for Salvation in the New Testament. Were the word choices in the Hebrew of the
Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament as loosey goosey as my
understanding or something stronger? ln Biblical
Greek straight through to modern Greek, the word for hope is elpida. It is often used as a girl’s name. The word is
more assertive than in my definition. It
encompasses a sense of expectation. When
you hope for something, you do not have it in hand but you expect to get it.
