Opium of the People or Source of Resistance?

Hope is often understood as a passive waiting that opposes resistance. Against the state of the world, hope is oriented towards a coming intervention, a fundamental change. In an apocalyptic perspective - which is applied to the Hebrew Bible by many researchers - a distance between this world and the divinely desired one is created. In this way, the gift of hope enables one to passively endure the current difficult circumstances. This article examines discourses on hope in the Hebrew Bible and shows that a strong reference to the ordering and reestablishing intervention of God characterizes hope as an attitude. In these texts, the expected changes do not relate to a distant future and the end of worldly rule. The visions of justice for the world are not replaced by resilience; on the contrary: they will be realized in history. Hope is not to be equated with human helplessness.

Economic Justice · Hebrew · Intervention (counseling) · Opium · Perspective (graphical) · Vision · Optimism, Hope, and Well-being · Religion, Society, and Development · Theological Perspectives and Practices