Any
church-going or merely Bible-reading Christian will be familiar with the phrase
‘LORD of hosts’. It occurs repeatedly in the books of the prophets, and its
Latin form Dominus Deus Sabaoth has
made its way into the Catholic liturgy. It is clearly a stock phrase, for sabaoth, like amen and alleluia, is a
modified Hebrew word.
In Hebrew,
‘LORD of hosts’ reads JHWH tsva’ot. I
always assumed that these ‘hosts’ were the heavenly hosts of angels. However,
yesterday I was reading Exodus and came across the phrase ‘the hosts of the
LORD’. It set off a bell somewhere, and indeed, the words are basically the
same – before Scripture calls God JHWH
tsva’ot, it speaks of the tsiv’ot
JHWH. They are the tribes of Israel, celebrating the great first Passover:
‘And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the
hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.’ (Ex. 12:41)
It is the
chapter in which God gives directions for the first time on how to celebrate
the feast(s) of Passover and of the Unleavened Bread, in which the people are
protected from the destroyer by the Blood of the Lamb, and in which they set
out from the land of slavery.
We are the
hosts of the LORD.
And the LORD
and his hosts celebrate the same Passover, for so the story continues: ‘It was
a night of watching by the LORD, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so
this same night is a night of watching kept to the LORD by all the people of
Israel throughout their generations.’
So we hold our
vigils.
My soul looks for the Lord
more than sentinels for daybreak.
More than sentinels for daybreak,
let Israel look for the LORD,
For with the LORD is kindness,
with him is full redemption,
And God will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
(Psalm
130:6-8)
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