- Name 27 of 70The LORD of Hosts
- HebrewYHWH Tseva'ot
- In plain wordsThe LORD of armies, Commander of everything in heaven and earth
- Where to find it1 Samuel 1:3 and 1:11, at the tabernacle in Shiloh
The Lord of hosts is a name that means "the Lord of armies." In Hebrew it is YHWH Tsebaoth (also spelled Jehovah Sabaoth), and it pictures God as the Commander of every army there is: the angels, the stars, and His people on earth. It shows up first in 1 Samuel 1:3, and the first person who prays with it is not a soldier at all.
A quiet first entrance at Shiloh
You would expect a title like this to show up on a battlefield. Instead it shows up in a line about a family trip. Elkanah, a man from the hill country of Ephraim, took his household every year to Shiloh, the town where Israel had set up the tabernacle, the large tent where God was worshiped (Joshua 18:1). The ark of the covenant, the gold-covered chest that held the law, was kept there too (1 Samuel 3:3).
And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there.
1 Samuel 1:3
The second half of that verse is a warning sign. The priests on duty were Eli's sons, and the Bible later says plainly that they knew not the LORD
(1 Samuel 2:12). Israel had no king yet. The worship center was run by men who did not care about God. It was a low point for the whole nation.
Inside Elkanah's family there was pain of a more private kind. He had two wives. Peninnah had children. Hannah had none, and every year at Shiloh her rival made fun of her for it until she cried and could not eat (1 Samuel 1:6 to 7).
Hannah's prayer to the Commander
One year Hannah got up from the meal, went to the tabernacle, and poured out her heart. She made a vow, a serious promise to God, and she began it with this name:
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.
1 Samuel 1:11
Think about the gap between the title and the request. She called on the Commander of all heaven's forces, and what she asked for was a baby. An affliction is a deep, lasting trouble, and a handmaid is a female servant; Hannah was calling herself God's servant girl. She did not think her need was too small for the biggest name she knew.
God answered. Hannah gave birth to a son and named him Samuel (1 Samuel 1:20). He grew up to be the prophet who anointed Israel's first two kings, Saul and David. The private prayer of a mocked woman turned the history of the nation.
Tsebaoth: the Hebrew word for armies
YHWH is God's personal name, the one the King James prints in capitals as LORD. Tsebaoth is the plural of tsaba, an everyday Hebrew word for an army. Strong's dictionary describes it as a mass of people, or of things, especially one organized for war. The King James most often translates it as host, and sometimes as war or army. So the name reads, word for word, "the Lord of armies."
Which armies? The Bible uses the same word for three very different groups:
- God's people. When Israel left Egypt, the Bible says
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt
(Exodus 12:41). A nation of former slaves is counted as His army. - The sky. After creation,
the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them
(Genesis 2:1). Deuteronomy 4:19 names the sun, the moon and the stars as the host of heaven. - The angels. The prophet Micaiah saw God on His throne with
all the host of heaven standing by him
(1 Kings 22:19).
Put together, the title says that every power in the universe, seen and unseen, takes its orders from one Lord. Nothing in heaven or on earth is outside His command.
Why the prophets kept saying it
The name is rare in the early books of the Bible, then shows up again and again in the prophets. The short books of Haggai and Malachi, written to the small group of Jews who came home from exile in Babylon, are crowded with it. Those people had no army, no king and a city in ruins. Bigger empires held all the power. Into that weakness God kept signing His messages with this name. Through Zechariah, another prophet of that time, He told their leader:
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
Zechariah 4:6
The Commander of all armies says the work will not be done by armies. That tells you something about the name. It is not about God needing force. It is about God having all of it and choosing how to use it.
Key King James verses about the Lord of hosts
Here are a few of the best-known places the name appears, with a word on each.
Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
1 Samuel 17:45
A young shepherd faced a giant with this name on his lips. David knew exactly which army he belonged to.
The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Psalm 46:7
This line puts the grandest title next to a very personal one. Jacob was a flawed, limping man, and the Commander of heaven calls Himself his God. A refuge is a safe place to run to.
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Isaiah 6:3
In Isaiah's vision, the seraphim, shining heavenly beings around God's throne, called this name back and forth to each other. Holy means set apart, pure and unlike anything else.
And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
2 Kings 6:16-17
The phrase LORD of hosts is not in this story, but it shows the name in action. Elisha's servant woke up to an enemy army around the city. Then God let him see the other army, the one that had been there the whole time.
Living under the Lord of hosts
Most of us count what we can see. The other team has more players. The bills are bigger than the paycheck. The people against you seem louder than the people for you. This name asks you to count again, because the forces you cannot see belong to God.
It also tells you who is welcome to use it. Hannah was not a general, a priest or a queen. She was a hurting woman whose prayer was so quiet the priest thought she was drunk. If the LORD of hosts listened to her, He will listen to you, whether your request is about a sick parent, a lonely year at school, or a dream you have never said out loud.
And the name keeps you honest about sides. It is easy to ask God to join our team. The better question is whether we have joined His.
- Name one fear you have measured only by what you can see, and pray as Elisha did: ask God to open your eyes.
- Bring God a request you have been holding back because it seemed too small.
- Read Psalm 46 aloud and notice how often it calls God a refuge and a strength.
The LORD of hosts is name 27 of the 70. The very next name tells you how much this Commander cares about the people He leads: Jealous, the jealous God of Exodus 34:14. Before that, look back at The LORD Is There, or see how this title fits among the Jehovah names of God.
