Note 3 — ISAIAH. (continued 4)

This title of Jehovah, with some variations, is found upwards of 160 times in the Old Testament. The meaning of the word hosts is doubtless the same as that of army in Dan. iv. 35, and includes all the myriads of holy angels who people the celestial spheres, as in 1 Kings xxii. 19 the host of heaven were seen by Micaiah standing round the throne of God. So in Ps. ciii. 21, cxlviii. 2, the hosts of God are His angels. (Comp. Deut. xxxiii. 2.) By a light metonymy, or may be in a slightly different sense, the host of heaven designates the heavenly spheres themselves (Gen. ii. 1; Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3; Isa. xxxiv. 4, &c.). It is probably with reference to the idolatrous worship of the host of heaven that the title of the Lord of hosts was given to the true God, as asserting His universal supremacy. (See Neh. ix. 6.) In the New Testament, the phrase occurs only once, James v. 4, the Lord of Sabaoth. In Rom. ix. 29, it is a quotation from Isaiah.—Professor Rawlinson.