“Deus Sabaoth” is a Latin term that reproduces the Hebrew expression Yahweh ṣĕbā'ōt, which literally means “God of hosts.”
The term was found in the Latin Mass in the Eucharistic prayer: “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth,” translated into English as “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.”

In fact, the term “hosts” can also refer to the heavenly hosts of angels and, more generally, to the omnipotence of God.
Today, the term Sabaoth is translated as “God of the universe”: this is not merely a linguistic matter, but a profound revision—or, if one prefers, a return to the Gospel era, in which war was considered an absolute evil and therefore incompatible with the God of love and forgiveness in Christianity. The early Christians suffered martyrdom: they never took up arms against their persecutors.

Pope Leo, on this past Palm Sunday, recalled that “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war and whose hands drip with blood,” and emphasized the meekness of Jesus, which stands in contrast to human brutality and oppression: “he did not arm himself, he did not defend himself.” Our God is the God of peace, not of war, and above all, no one can use God to justify war.

However, we must also remember that even within Catholicism, holy wars have been justified: from the Deus vult of the Crusades to the wars among various Christian denominations, often seen as holy wars.

In reality, in the Jewish world of the Old Testament, the term Sabaoth was understood as “God of armies”; there was even a prohibition against counting one’s own fighters, because victory was in God’s hands and not in the size of the host.

Today, in some evangelical circles—once described as fundamentalist (a term later applied to Islamists)—the idea of Deus Sabaoth still persists with a strong biblical spirit. Recently, for example, one could see groups of evangelicals around Trump praying to God for victory in the wars he has undertaken (contradicting the promise on which Trump himself was elected, namely not to involve America in further conflicts).

The idea of holy war, on the other hand, remains widespread in the Middle East. Muslims call it jihad, which in fact means “effort” (to carry out the will of God).

Islamic fundamentalists believe that the backwardness of the Middle East is due to aggression by Western unbelievers, of which Israel would be only the spearhead (according to Nasrallah’s discourse). They therefore believe it is a religious duty to wage war against them, first to destroy Israel and then to defeat the West, and they firmly believe that, if they prove worthy, Allah will grant them victory.

However, belief in this is declining even in the Islamic world, and it seems that now it is mainly the Shiites of Iran, followers of Khomeini, along with Middle Eastern proxies (such as Hezbollah) and also Hamas, who maintain it.

The Wahhabis are also Islamic fundamentalists like the ayatollahs, although they are mortal enemies; however, they have now abandoned the idea of jihad against Jewish and Western unbelievers.
In the past they supported fundamentalist Palestinians (and Hamas), but by now they have done nothing to help them; indeed, in the current conflict with Iran, they are in practice fighting alongside the Israelis.

We must, however, note that the same messianic spirit can also be found in Israel among the Haredim (fundamentalists), according to whom God himself gave all of Palestine as the promised land to the Israelites, and it would therefore be blasphemous to leave even a fragment of it to others.

Yet, even more strangely, this messianic sense sometimes affects atheists as well: for example, the Nazis had the motto “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”) and continued fighting even when the war was clearly lost. Likewise, in Fascism it was claimed that, if God exists, then he would grant victory to the Italians.

The problem is that if we think that the outcome of wars does not depend on the armies in the field or on their strength, but on a presumed divine will, then wars are undertaken without considering forces and chances of victory. This happened, for example, with the Jews of antiquity, who twice rebelled against the Romans when it was entirely clear they lacked the strength, and it ended in great massacres and their expulsion from Palestine.

This is what is happening now, in a different way, in the Middle East, where fundamentalists think they can destroy Israel because this would be God’s will, while it is entirely clear that the forces at play do not allow it: Israel always wins, the Arabs are repeatedly massacred and move from one catastrophe to another. Israel is a strong and cohesive country; it has clear technological superiority, nuclear weapons, and above all the West—and especially America—would never allow a second Shoah.

But if one believes that victory depends on God, then objective factors are not taken into account.

Now, certainly, no one doubts divine omnipotence. However, this does not remove human freedom, above all human responsibility for one’s actions.
I cannot think that my children will live or die according to God’s will and therefore do nothing to feed them, care for them, or educate them.

It is true that God can do everything, but human beings must act according to their duties and their own judgment.