Psalm 42

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

Hope is sometimes maligned as an opiate or delusion or distraction.

There are nineteen Hebrew words that we translate as hope.

Here the psalmist uses יָחַל or yachal which also means wait or wait expectantly.

Speaking of the suffering servant, the prophet Isaiah uses yachal:"He will not be disheartened or crushed until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law."

Hope is the ability - especially under duress - to focus on sources of meaning and relationships that transcend and potentially transform. We wait expectantly for justice to be restored and in expecting it, we speed its return.

Psalm 42