Another objection to our interpretation is raised by Borchert, who argues that all the passages in which 2éba@’dth means the hosts of Israel belong to the latest elements in the Canon (20 of them to the latest source of the Pentateuch), and, moreover, that they speak, not of military hosts but of multitudes of people in general. But the latter assertion (even apart from 1 K 2°, where giv 6th in the present Deuteronom. narrative belongs in all probability to an earlier source) is not to the point. For the latest source of the Pentateuch always thinks of the people as a military body, whether on the march or in camp, ranged in fixed order about the sanctuary (cf. especially Nu 2). And the circumstance that in the older lingreastio usage the earthly army (like the heavenly, Jos 5) is designated zaba in the singular, does not pre- vent the conclusion that the plural likewise served originally as a designation of earthly hosts. This view finds a very strong support in 1S 172. when David there says to the Philistine giant, ‘TI come jn the name of Jahweh of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel,’ he plainly intends by the latter addition to give his heathen opponent an authentic interpretation of the name Jahweh Zéba@ 6th, which, without this, must have remained unintelligible to him.
But, if we abide accordingly by the interpreta- tion of the title as referring to the hosts of Israel who are to put their trust in battle in Jahweh (as in Jg 5%, 25 5-4) as their true leader and cham- pion, an additional remark requires to be made.
Jahweh Zéb@oth is originally the war-God as represented by the sacred Ark.+ That the ark itself was a warlike shrine was shown above (p. 628 f.). But now, when we find that, of the 11 passages in the Books of Samuel where the title Jahweh Zeba bth occurs, no fewer than 5 stand in a direct or indirect relation to the sacred Ark, this cannot beaccidental. Cf. 1S 1%» Juhweh Zéb@ oth at Shiloh, where the Ark was then located ; 44 ‘the ark of Jahweh Zeba’dth.’ But one of the strongest evidences may be found in 28 6% Itis true that the original text of this passage has suffered corruption, as is shown by the different form in the parallel 1 Ch 13°. But to strike out the whole sentence after Zob@ oth is quite an un-
*In Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift fiir dive gesammte lutherische Theologie und Kirche, 1874, p. 217 ff. : ;
+ This connexion was already suggested by Vuilleumier (art. “Le nom de Dieu Jahvéh-cebaoth’ in Revue de Théol. et de Philos., April 1877, p. 302); it was established in detail by Kautzsch (Joc.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL 637
justifiably violent procedure. Rather may we con- clude that here in any case it was stated that ‘over the ark the name of Jahweh of Hosts was named,’ i.e. that the Ark stood in the closest relation to Jahweh as the war-God, being the representation and the pledge of His presence. And when, in 2 5 618, David blesses the people in the name of Jahweh of Hosts, this is the solemn termination of all the arrangements for the conveying of the sacred. Ark to Zion, which had thus for their objective Jahweh of Hosts, the war-God. Again, in Ps 24", the designation of God as ‘Jahweh of Hosts’ ((| Wars where He is called a mighty one and a war-hero) is most simply explained by supposing that in this Psalm-fragment the subject is the return of the Ark to the temple from a campaign.
(5) While convinced that the above is the true interpretation of Jahweh Zéb@éth as an original appellation of the war-God represented by the sacred Ark, we do not mean to deny that another conception gradually established itself in the lin- guistic usage, to such an extent that in many passages the original conception appears to be quite forgotten. This is shown even by the sta- tistics of the employment of the expression. Of the 278 passages in which Jahweh Zobivoth (so 284 times) or another combination with Zéb@ oth occur, there are 19 in the Historical books (11 in Samuel, 5 in Kings, but only in the mouth of prophets ; 3 in Chronicles in parallels to Samuel); 15 in the. Psalms (in the first book only Ps 24; 14 in the second and third books); while all the other instances are in the Prophetical books. Even if amongst the last named there are a few which might point to Jahweh Zeba oth as the war-God, such an interpretation is quite impossible in the — vast majority of instances. On the contrary, the addition Zéb@6th has plainly attached to it the notion of the supramundane power and glory of Jahweh. It is manifestly so in those passages in which this Divine name stands in parallelism with the notion of the ‘ holiness,’ 7.¢. (in accordance with the Prophetic use of the term) the absolutely ex- alted being of Jahweh, as in Is 516.24 63, How this change of signification is to be understood is not possible to say with certainty. Only so much is clear, that, after the permanent establishment of the Ark in the mysterious darkness of the ady- tum of the temple, its former connexion with the war-God, Jahweh Zéb@ oth, must have vanished from the popular consciousness, and that in place of this the awe-inspiring majesty of this God must have come into the foreground. It remains, how- ever, the most plausible supposition that now the hosts of angels and perhaps also (at least in later times) of stars came involuntarily to be substituted for the earthly hosts, so that, finally, the idea of Ruler of the Universe connected itself per se with the title Jahweh Zéba@’oth. In this way we could explain most simply the surprising circumstance that there is no instance of the occurrence of Jahweh Zéba@’ oth in the Book of Ezekiel, although it is met with very frequently in Jeremiah and immediately after the Exile. Ezekiel may have purposely avoided it because it was capable of being misinterpreted as a justification of star- worship.