The Names of God in the Old Testament 6 min read Lesson 6 of 12

Yahweh Tsevaot, the Lord of hosts, whose armies are Israel’s, the stars, and the angels at once

Yahweh of Armies: The Name a Barren Woman Said First

The Lord of hosts is one of the commonest names for God in the prophets, nearly three hundred times, and its first appearance in the Bible is not on a battlefield. It is in the mouth of a childless woman praying at a shrine, so quietly that the priest thinks she is drunk. Whose armies they are, the Old Testament never says in one place; it says it in three.

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Lesson 6 of 12 · The name of command

Yahweh Tsevaot — Yahweh of Armies in this reader’s text, the Lord of hosts in the older ones — is the name of God as commander. The armies are three at once: the ranks of Israel, which David invokes against Goliath; the host of heaven, the stars, which Isaiah says God brings out by number; and the angels, the army no one sees. The prophets use the name more than any other, and use it most when Israel’s own armies have failed. Its first speaker is Hannah, praying for a child, which is the name’s own lesson: the commander of every army is addressed first by someone who has no strength at all.

Hannah

The name is not in the Pentateuch. It enters the Bible at Shiloh, in the story of a woman who could not conceive.

She vowed a vow, and said, “Yahweh of Armies, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a boy, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head.” — 1 Samuel 1:11 · WEB

Read the comment on Hannah Pours Out Her Soul

Yahweh of Armies, if you will look on the affliction of your servant and give her a son. The first time anyone in scripture says the name, it is a vow, and the vow is kept: the child is Samuel, who will anoint the kings under whom the armies march. The name that will thunder through Isaiah and Zechariah begins as a whisper at a shrine, from a woman the priest mistook for drunk.

צָבָא tsâbâʼ H6635

or (feminine) צְבָאָה; from צָבָא; a mass of persons (or figuratively, things), especially reg. organized forwar (an army); by implication, a campaign, literally or figuratively (specifically, hardship, worship); appointed time, ([phrase]) army, ([phrase]) battle, company, host, service, soldiers, waiting upon, war(-fare).

An army, a host, a company assembled for war or service — from a root meaning to go out to war, or to serve in a body. In the plural, tsevaot, it stands beside the name some two hundred and eighty times, almost all of them in Samuel, the Psalms and the prophets. The Greek Old Testament sometimes translated it pantokrator, all-ruler, and sometimes simply spelled the Hebrew out as Sabaoth, which is how it reached the New Testament and the Latin liturgy. Whose host it names is answered by the context each time, and the contexts give three answers.

Three armies

Set the name where each of its armies is in view.

“Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” 1 Samuel 17:45 · WEB
David to Goliath: you come with a sword, I come in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel. The name explained by the boy who says it: Israel’s ranks.
“Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. By the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.” Isaiah 40:26 · WEB
He brings out their army by number and calls them all by name: the stars, the host of heaven, mustered like troops.
“Elisha prayed, and said, “Yahweh, please open his eyes, that he may see.” Yahweh opened the young man’s eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.” 2 Kings 6:17 · WEB
The mountain full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha: the army that is there and unseen, which the servant is shown.
“Yahweh of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” Psalm 46:7 · WEB
Yahweh of Armies is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge: the name as the reason a besieged city does not fear.

The Old Testament does not choose among the three, and a reader should not. The point of the name is that all the ranks there are, seen and unseen, answer to one command.

Holy, holy, holy

The name’s most famous sentence is sung by the unseen army itself.

One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!” — Isaiah 6:3 · WEB

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Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of Armies; the whole earth is full of his glory. The seraphim are the host, and they name their commander by the name of command. The last lesson’s Adonai sat on the throne two verses earlier; this name is what his court calls him.

The prophets’ name

Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi use the name in nearly every paragraph, and the timing is the lesson: they wrote to a people with no army at all, back from exile, under Persian rule, rebuilding a temple by permission. The name of command was spoken most by prophets to people who commanded nothing.

Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, “This is Yahweh’s word to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says Yahweh of Armies. — Zechariah 4:6 · WEB

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Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says Yahweh of Armies. The commander of every host tells a governor with no troops that the work will be done by another force altogether. That is the name doing what it did for Hannah: the armies are God’s, and the one who says the name may have none.

Sabaoth in the New Testament

The name reaches the New Testament untranslated. Paul quotes Isaiah — unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed (Romans 9:29) — and James warns the rich that the wages they withheld have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (5:4). Both leave the Hebrew word in Greek letters, as the Greek Old Testament had, and James’ use is Hannah’s: the commander of armies, invoked on behalf of unpaid laborers who have no power to collect.

What the name asks

It asks to be said by the weak. From Hannah to James the name of every army is on the lips of people with no army of their own, and the Old Testament’s kings, who had armies, are the ones warned against trusting them. The name is not a boast; it is where the powerless put their case.