The Lord of hosts?

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i_have_no_names

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In Psalm 24:10, it says:
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
He is the King of glory.
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I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what hosts means in this context. Also, is it just coincidental that the same word - Host - means Eucharist today?

Thanks,
 
i_have_no_names said:
In Psalm 24:10, it says:

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what hosts means in this context. Also, is it just coincidental that the same word - Host - means Eucharist today?

Thanks,
Click to expand...
‘Host’ here refers to ‘Armies’ as the epithet ‘Lord of Hosts’ is from the Hebrew ‘YHWH Tzevaot’, with Tzevaot (also Sabaoth) meaning Armies (plural).

This ‘Hosts’ comes from the Latin ‘hostis’ meaning ‘foreign enemy’ and is unrelated to the Latin ‘hostia’, ‘sacrificial offering’, i.e. linguistic false friends.
 
i_have_no_names said:
In Psalm 24:10, it says:

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what hosts means in this context. Also, is it just coincidental that the same word - Host - means Eucharist today?

Thanks,
Click to expand...

The Host in the Mass is so called from Latin hostia, “sacrificial victim”. The hosts in the Divine title are the “heavenly host”. There is also a Latin word hostis, enemy - just for the record. The similarity of the words mentioned is no reason to find a Eucharistic reference in the title “Lord of Hosts” - unrelated words often sound the same or are identical in form.​

The HH (see Luke 2 for a reference to them) are the “heavenly host” of:
  • the stars
  • the heavenly armies of the God of Israel who form the heavenly counterpart to his army on earth, consisting of Israelites of military age
  • the “sons of God”, who are members of that heavenly army
    Ideas about
  • stars as objects of worship
  • stars as objects of false worship; &
  • as divine beings
  • as divine warriors
  • as divine beings under the control of God
  • as sheep known to God the Shepherd*
    shade into one another - all are in the Bible, & are often impossible to separate from one another. Most are common to Israel & its neighbours. One idea about stars that seems to be almost invisible in the Bible - & probably isn’t - is the conception of them as means of divining the will of the gods or of God.
The Heavenly Host in Luke 2 is perhaps to be thought of as an “honour guard”.

The title “Lord of Hosts” is a translation of JHWH Tsevaoth , which in the LXX & Vulgate became:
  • Kurios sabaoth
  • Dominus exercituum
    Other posters have mentioned other translations 🙂
*“Shepherd” is often a metaphor for “king”. This has effects on the interpretation of John 10 among other places.
 
Thanks all.

So, if I’m getting this right, the Lord of hosts is equivalent to the Lord of armies? Armies of Israelites and stars and angels?
 
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