Job 17:15 — ExegesisTAB

The verse is built as a pair of rhetorical questions, opened by ve'ayyeh {וְ֭אַיֵּה | wə-ʾayyēh} ‘and where?’ which signals lament and forces the reader to face the absence of an answer. The particle efo {אֵפ֣וֹ | ʾêp̄ô} ‘then’ adds an inferential punch: given Job’s outlook, the natural consequence is that “hope” has no identifiable location. The doubled phrase tiqvati … ve-tiqvati {תִקְוָתִ֑י ... וְ֝תִקְוָתִ֗י | tiqvātî ... wə-tiqvātî} creates poetic emphasis through repetition, reinforcing that the topic is not abstract optimism but Job’s own remaining prospect. The second clause is a verbless interrogative frame followed by the verb: mi {מִ֣י | mî} ‘who?’ + yesurenna {יְשׁוּרֶֽנָּה | yəšûrennāh} ‘will see it’, where the feminine singular object suffix points back to “hope” as the thing that cannot be located or perceived. English keeps the two-question structure and repeats “my hope” to preserve the Hebrew parallelism, while rendering the second line as a perception-question to reflect the verb ‘see’ and the implied impossibility.