What Does Job 17:15 Mean?

And where now is my cord? As for my cord, who sees it?

Job 17:15 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

THE KEY

The Hebrew word for hope can also name a cord, so Job asks who can see the line of expectation he can no longer find.

THE MEANING

The reader’s expectation is questioned aloud: where is it, and who can see it? The repeated “my hope” makes the uncertainty personal and unresolved; no witness appears to point to it.

THE ROOT

תִּקְוָתִי

tiqvati

GROWS FROM

קוה

q-w-h

To wait for, look eagerly toward, or expect.

The word for hope comes from a root of waiting and expectation. The same Hebrew noun can also mean a cord, as in Rahab’s scarlet cord; Job’s question makes that image striking, as though the line of expectation has vanished from sight.

ALSO GROWS

qavah: To wait for, look eagerly for, or expect.

קָוָה

This verb shares the root of Job’s noun for hope, revealing waiting within the expectation he cannot locate.

tiqvah: Hope or expectation; also a cord, as in Rahab’s scarlet cord (Joshua 2:18).

תִּקְוָה

The word’s concrete sense of a cord gives shape to Job’s question about an expectation no one can see.

THE PATTERN

Hope is an expectation exposed by what cannot yet be seen.

And now, Lord, what am I stretched toward? My holding is toward you.

Psalm 39:7 · SDVExpectation becomes a question about what remains to be hoped for.

For in hope we have been delivered; but hope that is seen is not hope, for why would anyone still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it by bearing up under it.

Romans 8:24-25 · SDVThe passage names the tension Job voices: hope concerns what remains unseen.

Now trust is the footing beneath things hoped for, the proof of things unseen.

Hebrews 11:1 · SDVWhat is hoped for is held in relation to what has not yet come into view.

THE THREAD

I stretch myself taut for the LORD, my living soul stretches taut, and in his word I hope.

Psalm 130:5 · SDV

Job’s word for “hope” comes from ⁨קוה⁩, the same root translated “wait” twice in Psalm 130:5. The shared root reveals waiting inside hope, even when Job cannot see where it leads.

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