HOST, ARMY — the same root behind Adonai Tzevaot, 'the LORD of Hosts,' God's own title as commander of a heavenly army, and behind the ordinary verb for mustering troops for war. Scripture uses this exact word for women only twice in the whole Hebrew Bible: here, of 'the tzovot who tzavu at the door of the tent of meeting' (38:8), and once more, centuries later, in a far darker context — Eli's sons lying with 'the women who tzavu at the entrance of the tent of meeting' (1 Samuel 2:22, not yet on these pages). What kind of service this word names — guard duty, formal ministry, something closer to army muster — is genuinely unrecoverable from the text alone; the shelf itself splits between 'assembling,' 'ministering,' and a flattened 'serving,' none of which fully carries the word's usual weight. → first discussed at Exod 38:8