Waiting for an answer

And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Abram is old and childless when he says so to God plainly, naming the household servant who stands to inherit instead. What he receives is a promise and a night sky, not a child. The child arrives decades later.

And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

Two verses close a wait of about twenty-five years between the promise and Isaac's birth. The narrator says only that it happened at the set time God had spoken of. The delay itself is never explained, and Sarah is long past childbearing when it ends.

And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

Hannah, childless and taunted for it, prays at the sanctuary in bitterness of soul, silently, only her lips moving. The priest watching assumes she is drunk. The account records her grief and the misreading of it well before it records any answer.

How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?

Four times in two verses the poet asks how long. The complaint is not that God is absent in theory but that the waiting has gone on daily, with sorrow carried in the heart. The psalm leaves the question standing in scripture rather than resolving it.

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Waiting is compared to a night watchman looking for dawn, and the line is repeated as if to hold the position. The watchman cannot make morning arrive sooner. He knows it comes, and he stays at his post until it does.

The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Written among the ruins of Jerusalem after Babylon destroyed it. The case for hoping and waiting quietly sits inside a book of unrelieved grief, a few lines surrounded by lament, made by someone who has lost everything and does not pretend otherwise.

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

The prophet has accused God of ignoring violence, then climbs his tower to wait for a reply. The reply tells him to write the vision plainly and to expect it to tarry. It insists the appointed time will come and says nothing about when.

For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

The famous verse sits in a letter Jeremiah sent to Judeans deported to Babylon around 597 BC. Verse 10 sets the terms: after seventy years. The thoughts of peace are addressed to the nation, about a return most of the first readers would not live to see.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Spoken to exiles convinced their case had been overlooked. Renewed strength is attached to waiting, and the images descend rather than climb: mounting up, then running, then walking without fainting. The last of the three is the one a long wait actually needs.