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Bible Dictionaries
Host
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Noun.
Tsâbâ' (צָבָא, Strong's #6633), “host; military service; war; army; service; labor; forced labor; conflict.” This word has cognates in either a verbal or noun form in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. The noun form occurs 486 times in biblical Hebrew and in all periods of the language.
This word involves several interrelated ideas: a group; impetus; difficulty; and force. These ideas undergird the general concept of “service” which one does for or under a superior rather than for himself. Tsâbâ' is usually applied to “military service” but is sometimes used of “work” in general (under or for a superior). In Num. 1:2-3 the word means “military service”: “Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel … from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel.…” The idea is more concrete in Josh. 22:12, where the word represents serving in a military campaign: “And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go to war against them.” Num. 31:14 uses tsâbâ' of the actual battling itself: “And Moses was wroth with the officers of the [army], … which came from the battle.”
The word can also represent an “army host”: “And Eleazer the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle …” (Num. 31:21). Even clearer is Num. 31:48: “And the officers which were over thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, came near unto Moses.“This meaning first appears in Gen. 21:22, which mentions Phichol, the captain of Abimelech’s “army.” At several points this is the meaning of the feminine plural: “And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people” (Deut. 20:9). In Num. 1, 2, and 10, where tsâbâ' occurs with regard to a census of Israel, it is suggested that this was a military census by which God organized His “army” to march through the wilderness. Some scholars have noted that the plan of the march, or the positioning of the tribes, recalls the way ancient armies were positioned during military campaigns. On the other hand, groupings of people might be indicated regardless of military implications, as seems to be the case in passages such as Exod. 6:26: “These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the Lord said, Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.”
That tsâbâ' can refer to a “nonmilitary host” is especially clear in Ps. 68:11: “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.” The phrase “hosts of heaven” signifies the stars as visual indications of the gods of the heathen: “And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham …” (Zeph. 1:5). This meaning first appears in Deut. 4:19. Sometimes this phrase refers to the “host of heaven,” or the angels: “And [Micaiah] said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven [the angels] standing by him on his right hand and on his left” (1 Kings 22:19). God Himself is the commander of this “host” (Dan. 8:10-11). In Josh. 6:14 the commander of the “host” of God confronted Joshua. This heavenly “host” not only worships God but serves to do all His will: “Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure” (Ps. 103:21).
Another meaning of the phrase “the host(s) of heaven” is simply “the numberless stars”: “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me” (Jer. 33:22). This phrase can include all the heavenly bodies, as it does in Ps. 33:6: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” In Gen. 2:1 tsâbâ' includes the heavens, the earth, and everything in the creation: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”
The meaning “nonmilitary service in behalf of a superior” emerges in Num. 4:2-3: “Take the sum of the sons of Kohath … from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter [the service], to do the work in the tabernacle of the congregation.” In Job 7:1 the word represents the burdensome everyday “toil” of mankind: “Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hireling?” In Job 14:14 tsâbâ' seems to represent “forced labor.” In Dan. 10:1 the word is used for “conflict”: “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflict” [RSV; KJV, “time appointed”].
B. Verb.
Tsâbâ' (צָבָא, Strong's #6633), “to wage war, to muster an army, to serve in worship.” This verb appears 14 times in biblical Hebrew. Tsâbâ' means “to wage war” in Num. 31:7: “And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses.…” The word is used in 2 Kings 25:19 to refer to “mustering an army.” Another sense of tsâbâ' appears in Num. 4:23 with the meaning of “serving in worship”: “… all that enter in to perform the service, to do the work in the tabernacle of the congregation.”
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Host'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/h/host.html. 1940.
