Psalm 37/Notes/Lexical.v. 9.150246

The verb קוה ("hope") refers to a "state in which humans are confident that their longing will be fulfilled" (SDBH). It is synonymous with התחולל (from the root חול/חיל, a by-form of יחל) in v. 7. TDOT compares the two verbs as follows: "It is difficult to distinguish semantically the various verbs for hoping and waiting. As far as the two most frequent verbs are concerned, one can perhaps best follow Westermann’s suggestion that yḥl 'in reference to God retains the entire range of meaning that it has in nontheological usage,' whereas qwh is much more influenced by its theological use. Similar to ḥkh and śbr, yḥl would then emphasize more the aspect of 'waiting' and qwh more the aspect of 'hoping.' One consideration, however, is that these verbs and their derivatives appear not only in similar contexts but generally also in late (exilic-postexilic) texts, suggesting that they have lost much of their original semantic content and have become increasingly synonymous such that the use of the one or the other depends more on stylistic than semantic considerations."