The Host of Heaven and the Divine Army: A Reassessment

Abstract

That YHWH was perceived to command a divine army in the heavens brooks no argument. Traditionally, the phrase "host of heaven" ‫השמים(‬ ‫)צבא‬ has been associated with this divine army. In this article I reassess the relevant evidence and argue that the host of heaven are not portrayed in this role. The biblical texts contain numerous references to YHWH's divine army, but these forces are never called a host ‫.)צבא(‬ Rather, the diversity of terminology employed in reference to YHWH's army suggests that it possessed no fixed terminology. It may be that the biblical authors deliberately did not use the term host in order to avoid associating YHWH's divine army too closely with the weaknesses of human armies.That YHWH was believed to command a divine army is not in doubt. The central question of this article, however, is whether "the host of heaven" ‫צבא(‬ ‫)השמים‬ should be identified with this divine army. The term ‫צבא‬ regularly refers to human armies in the biblical corpus, and thus the ‫השמים‬ ‫צבא‬ are commonly associated with the divine army in scholarly literature and popular conception. 1 In this article, however, I will demonstrate that, in the biblical texts, "the host of heaven" are never portrayed as a military force or as acting in a military manner. 2 This article is the result of research undertaken for my doctoral thesis: Cat Quine, "Ritual, Rhetoric, and the Polemic against the Host of Heaven" (PhD diss., University of Nottingham, 2018), funded by Midlands4Cities AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. Thanks are due to my funders and my supervisor, Prof. Carly L. Crouch, for her comments on earlier drafts of this material.1 E.g., E.