You are strongly recommended to add to your library the excellent revised edition of Harper's Bible Dictionary titled, The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Revised Edition, edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, with the Society of Biblical Literature (NY: Harper Collins, 1996). It is currently the best one-volume Bible dictionary in English, and it is available at Border's Books, Christian Science Reading Rooms, http://www.borders.com, or http://www.christianbook.com.

Lord of Hosts (KJV: ‘Lord of Sabaoth’), a term describing all the forces that operate at God’s command throughout his whole creation (e.g., Ps. 89:6-8). It is an old title for God who, in the role of divine warrior, was the leader of the armies of Israel. He was believed to be enthroned upon the cherubim on the Ark of the covenant. For that reason, when the Israelites were preparing to go to war against the Philistines, they sent to the shrine at Shiloh in order to get the Ark, so that God, who was enthroned on the cherubim, might accompany them into battle, thus ensuring, they thought, their success (1 Sam. 4:4). In the nt, the term occurs in Rom. 9:29 and James 5:4.