hope

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“Hope is sometimes one of the most difficult terms to translate in the entire Bible. It is not because people do not hope for things, but so often they speak of hoping as simply ‘waiting.’ In fact, even in Spanish, the word esperar means both ‘to wait’ and ‘to hope.’ However, in many instances the purely neutral term meaning ‘to wait’ may be modified in such a way that people will understand something more of its significance. For example, in Tepeuxila Cuicatec hope is called ‘wait-desire.’ Hope is thus a blend of two activities: waiting and desiring. This is substantially the type of expectancy of which hope consists.

In Yucateco the dependence of hope is described by the phrase ‘on what it hangs.’ ‘Our hope in God’ means that ‘we hang onto God.’ The object of hope is the support of one’s expectant waiting. In Ngäbere the phrase “resting the mind” is used. This “implies waiting and confidence, and what is a better definition of hope than ‘confident waiting’.” (Source for this and above: Nida 1952, p. 20, 133)

Other languages translate as follows:

  • Mairasi: “vision resting place” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Enlhet: “waitings of (our) innermost” (“innermost” or valhoc is a term that is frequently used in Enlhet to describe a large variety of emotions or states of mind — for other examples see here) (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
  • Kwang: “one’s future is restored to one’s soul like a fresh, cool breeze on a hot day.” (Source: Mark Vanderkooi right here )
  • Noongar: koort-kwidiny or “heart waiting” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Anjam: “looking through the horizon” (source: Albert Hoffmann in his memoirs from 1948, quoted in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 7)
  • Ron: kintiɓwi or “put lip” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
  • Highland Totonac “wait with expectation” (to offset it from the every-day meaning of hope or wait — source: Hermann Aschmann in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 171ff. ).
  • Alekano: “wait not hearing two ears” (meaning to “wait without being double-minded” — source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation June 1986, p. 36ff.)
  • Marathi aasha (आशा) with a stronger emphasis on desire
  • Tamil: nampikkai (நம்பிக்கை) with a stronger emphasis on expectation (source for this and above: J.S.M. Hooper in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 2ff. )

In Mwera “hope” and “faith” are translated with the same word: ngulupai. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

C.M. Doke looks at a number of Bantu languages and their respective translations of “hope” with slightly varying connotations (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 9ff. ):

  • Xhosa and Zulu: themba “hope, expect,” also “have faith in, rely upon”
  • Tswana: tsholofelo “hope, expect, look for confidently”
  • Southern Sotho: tshepo “trust, rely on, believe in, have confidence in”
  • Kuanyama: eteelelo “waiting for”
  • Swahili: tumaini “confidence, trust, expectation, hope” (as a verb: “hope, trust, expect, be confident, be truthful, rely on”
  • Luganda: okusuubira “hope, trust, expect” also “look forward to, rely upon, anticipate, reckon”
  • Chichewa: chiyembekezo “wait for, wait, expect”
  • Koongo: vuvu “hope, expectancy, expectation, anticipation”
Syntyche D. Dahou (in Christianity Today, January 2021 or see here the same article in French ) reports on the two different terms that are being used in French (click or tap here to see the details):

“Unlike English, which uses the word hope broadly, the French language uses two words that derive from the word espérer (to hope): espoir and espérance. Both can first refer to something hoped for. In this sense, the word espoir usually refers to an uncertain object; that is, someone who hopes for something in this way does not have the certainty that it will happen (“I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow”). On the other hand, espérance describes what, rightly or wrongly, is hoped for or expected with certainty. It often refers to a philosophical or eschatological object (‘I hope in the goodness of human beings’; ‘I hope for the return of Jesus Christ’).

“When we speak of espoir or espérance, we then have in mind different types of objects hoped for. This difference matters, because both terms also commonly refer to the state of mind that characterizes the hopeful. And this state of mind will be different precisely according to the object hoped for.

“Having espoir for an uncertain yet better future in these difficult times may be a good thing, but it is not enough. Such hope can be disappointed and easily fade away when our wishes and expectations (our hopes) do not materialize.

“The opposite is true with espérance, which is deeper than our desire and wish for an end to a crisis or a future without pain and suffering. To face the trials of life, we need peace and joy in our hearts that come from expecting certain happiness. This is what espérance is: a profound and stable disposition resulting from faith in the coming of what we expect. In this sense, it is similar in meaning to the English word hopefulness.

“If we have believed in the Son of the living God, we have such a hope. It rests on the infallible promises of our God, who knows the plans he has for us, his children — plans of peace and not misfortune, to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). By using the two meanings of the word, we can say that the espérance that the fulfillment of his promises represents (the object hoped for) fills us with espérance (the state of mind).”

complete verse (Romans 4:18)

Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 4:18:

  • Uma: “Although there was no longer any hope for Abraham to have children, he kept believing and hoping in God. He believed God’s promise to him that said: he would become the father of many people all over the world. For before Abraham had any children, God said to him: ‘Your (sing.) descendants will be like the stars in the sky in number.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Ibrahim believed God’s promise and even though he had nothing to expect/hope for, he really yet continued-to-expect that God’s promise would be fulfilled. Therefore it finally was fulfilled and he became the parent of many-nations/tribes. As God has promised him, it is said in the holy-book, ‘Your descendants will be very many like the stars.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And as for Abraham, even though that at that time it seemed that it was not possible that the promise of God to him could be fulfilled, he believed just the same what God had said, that he would have an offspring and that he would become the ancestor of very many people. For God said to him that his descendants would be as many as the stars in Heaven.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Abraham believed, hoping that what God promised him would surely be fulfilled, even though it was as if it was impossible to be fulfilled. Thus he became the ancestor of people in many countries according to what God had told him saying, ‘The number (lit. quantity of the number) of your (sing.) descendants will be like the stars.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “God told Abraham that he would have a child. This child would have descendants increase all over the world, and they would not be able to be counted as to how many they were. Abraham didn’t know how this could be. But concerning this word God said, he believed that it would happen .” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Romans 4:18

In Greek this verse begins with the relative pronoun “who,” which is made explicit as a reference to Abraham by the Good News Translation and others (so Jerusalem Bible and An American Translation*). In this verse appears an idiomatic expression (literally “beyond hope on hope”), which is interpreted in substantially the same way by all translations, though expressed somewhat differently in each. In keeping with a number of other translations, the Good News Translation transforms this noun phrase into a verb followed by a noun phrase, hoped, when there was no hope. In this context hoped is essentially the same as believed, and so what is meant is that Abraham continued to believe in God even when all grounds for human hope were gone. Paul is here pointing out, of course, that Abraham became the father of many nations simply because he believed and hoped in the one who said to him, Your descendants will be this many.

In many languages it is particularly difficult to find a satisfactory term for “hope,” largely because of the combination of somewhat diverse components expressed by this same term. Essentially, hope combines the components of “confidence,” “waiting,” and “favorable outcome,” and is expressed by a phrase in some languages, “to await expectantly for good,” “to wait with confidence for good,” or “to wait in one’s heart for desired things.” To combine hope with an attributive phrase such as when there was no hope makes this first sentence of verse 18 even more complex. This may be rendered, however, in some languages as “waited in confidence when there was no reason for him to wait this way.” In some languages believed and hoped are combined as “in expecting he believed strong against the thing that made him doubt.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .