During the Sanctus, The Lord is called the “God of Hosts”. Is host supposed to mean the communion type of host or is something else?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I’m still learning
Nope, not a dumb question at all.
‘Hosts’ in this case comes from the Latin
hostis via the French
hoste. The original Latin word meant ‘foreign enemy’, but the meaning had eventually shifted to “a multitude of people arrayed as an army,” which is what the word means in English.
In other words,
Yhwh Ṣĕḇā’ōṯ (that’s how the title is in Hebrew; one might be familiar with the second word as
Sabaoth) is a title meaning “Yhwh [of] Armies.”
Sometimes,
ṣĕḇā’ōṯ (from a Hebrew word meaning “to wage war”) is understood as referring to Israel’s military force. The idea is either that (1) Yhwh is the commander who led the army of Israel to battle; or (2) that under the idea that Yhwh is the one who waged war for the Israelites, either Yhwh is compared to armies (I’m reminded of the phrase ‘one-man army’ here
) or the Israelite army is seen as a symbol of Yhwh. Other times,
ṣĕḇā’ōṯ is interpreted as referring to the ‘hosts’ of stars and heavenly bodies (Judges 5:20; Isaiah 40:26) or angelic beings (Joshua 5:14f).
The name was specifically connected with the sanctuary at Shiloh (cf. 1 Samuel 1:3, 11; 4:4). One theory has it that the name may have originated with the idea of Yhwh as king - in reference to the fact that the cherubim of the Ark (and later the temple) was seen as His throne. (Thrones in those days were usually flanked with depictions of winged beasts and/or human-animal hybrids, which is often seen as analogous with the biblical ‘cherubim’ - no, cherubs weren’t cute baby-heads.
Sometimes gods are even shown to ride upon these creatures - which would be comparable to the Israelite idea of God sitting on the cherubim.) One idea has it that the concept started with the idea that Yhwh was the ruler of the heavenly council of angelic beings, eventually also being applied to earthly, human armies.
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/6559/q192.jpg
, but thanks for the link anyway.