LORD OF HOSTS, Heb. phrase, יְהוָ֣ה צְבָאֹ֔ות, comprised of the covenant name of the God of Israel given to Moses at the burning bush in Midian (Exod 3) and a feminine noun formed from a common Sem. verbal root, Heb. צָבָא֒, H7371, “to wage war,” and usually has reference to large groups of ordered beings. In the OT the tr. “hosts” used in KJV, RSV and JPS is unclear. The LXX utilizes the variants, κύριος τῶν δυνάμεων, “Lord of Powers”; κύριος σαβαώθ, which is a simple transliteration quoted in the NT (Rom 9:29; James 5:4) and often used in the various VSS. Another less frequent variant is κύριος παντοκράτωρ, “Lord of Omnipotence,” a term which gained great acceptance in the later Byzantine and Medieval mass. The exact reference of the Heb. term has been debated for centuries. It is not clear whether the phrase is a noun, plus a construct or two nouns in apposition, and so the determination of the second term is unclear. However, the precise sovereignty of Jehovah over the hosts may be understood from some of the contexts in which the phrase appears. The initial use of the concept of the “hosts” is found in Genesis 2:1 where it refers back to the totality of created beings in the “heaven and the earth.” This would include all those self-conscious beings which were brought into being under the creation ordinances of God. A fine parallel passage using the phrase in its Genesis form is found in Isaiah 45:12. Various titles and divine names are added and set parallel to the Lord of Hosts phrase: Lord God of Hosts // God of Jacob (Ps 84:8); Lord God of Hosts // God dreaded in the great council of the Holy Ones (Ps 89:8). This last parallel is based upon the concept of the “great congregation,” the gath ering together of all the powers of the universe, heavenly and earthly, sacred or profane, at the command and summons of the Almighty (Job 1:1ff.; Jer 23:16, et al.). Modern attempts to attribute to a specific source as delineated by the documentary hypothesis whether J, P, E or whatever has proven specious. In the NT the phrase is simply and directly an allusion, often a quotation from the OT. The phrase and its formulations occur over 300 times in the Scriptures and are a major part of the revelation of the nature of God. The phrase is never primarily compounded with any of the names of God but the covenantal Jehovah.