What Does Job 17:15 Mean in the King James?

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

Job 17:15 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

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 wait I for? my hope is in thee.

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

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

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

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

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

THE THREAD

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

Psalm 130:5 · KJV

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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