Isaiah 10:5-7, 13-16 / Matthew 11:25-27
We hear of this term very often "Lord God of hosts". In fact we say it after the Preface in the Eucharistic prayer: Holy holy holy, Lord God of hosts ...
The word hosts is a translation of the Hebrew word sabaoth,
meaning “armies”—a reference to the angelic armies of heaven. Thus,
another way of saying “LORD of hosts” is “God of the armies of heaven.”
In 1 Samuel 17:45, in his pre-battle verbal sparring with Goliath, David evoked this name of God. In doing so, David was claiming that God is the universal ruler over every force whether in heaven or on earth.
Soon after David’s defeat of Goliath, Israel would enter the international scene. It was necessary for the nation to realize that the Lord God was King even of the many other mighty armies of the other nations.
But by the time of the prophet Isaiah, Israel had lost her glory and in the 1st reading, she was being punished for her sins and Assyria was the looming threat to her existence.
God was using the Assyrian army to threaten Israel in order to bring her to repentance and make her turn back to Him.
But Assyrians went out of their limits and savagely annihilated the nations and intended to do the same with Judah.
It was like how the 1st reading puts it: Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it, or the saw more strength than the man who handles it?
So the Lord of hosts sent a wasting sickness on the Assyrian warriors, like a fire that will consume them.
So if the Lord God of hosts will make us go down on our knees in order to turn back to Him, then He will. But He will not punish us more than we can take, nor will He let our oppressors have a free hand in whatever they do to us.
The Lord God is the Lord of hosts; but He is also merciful and compassionate. Let us be like little children who will be obedient and follow the ways of the Lord.