I issued a challenge on Friday to look at the word wait in Isaiah 40:31.  Over the weekend, I decided to take my own challenge.  I went to other verses in the scriptures.  Many say or imply waiting for the Lord, such as 2 Thess. 3:5 or Psalms 37:7.  But others implied other meanings; they say wait on the Lord rather than wait for the Lord, such as Psalms 25:3, Proverbs 20:22, and Isaiah 49:23.   But that raised as many questions as it answered, so I went online for the original Hebrew word for that text.  The root is the Hebrew letters for h w q.  It is transliterated as quvah and pronounced kaw-vaw.  It means to wait, to look for, and to linger, but it also means to collect or to bind together.  It is used 49 times in the King James Bible and translates as wait 29 times. I was about to give up, thinking I was trying to pull too much out of four little letters, when I thought of the King James translators who lived and worked in the 16th Century.  They chose to translate hwq as wait.  What would the connotations have been to the word wait in 1511? I went to the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://etymonline.com) and hit pay dirt - nearly five printed pages of definitions, origins, synonyms, and connotations.  I've tried to condense that and hope you find it worth the read: Wait one who watches  - Old Norman French, 12 century to guard - Frankish, 12 century to be awake - Old German, 12 century to stand attendance on, as a servant who serves his master, from the Old English, 16th century (bingo)  Bide (synonym) to stay, continue, remain, trust, rely upon - Old English; Norse Minister (synonym) to render service to, take care of, wait upon - Old French Attend (synonym) to pay attention to, to stretch one's mind toward - Old French attending to one's assigned dutites - Old French the action of presenting oneself as is to a dignitary or royalty - Old French Wot (synonym) to know - Archaic Old English

So waiting upon the Lord can mean to wait for Him to come again or to be patient in understanding that the Lord’s time is different from our time.  It can also mean to serve Him; to present ourselves before him with humble and contrite hearts; to attend to our assigned responsibilities in His Kingdom; to continue and remain faithful, even in the face of trials and temptations; to trust and rely upon Him rather than upon the arm of flesh; to pay attention to His word and to stretch our minds out continually toward Him; to know Him and to love Him.  Then the Lord shall renew our strength and we can mount up with wings as eagles.