The Book of Zechariah begins with urgency and promise.
In the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord comes to the prophet with this command:
“Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto me... and I will turn unto you”
(Zechariah 1:3)
For those interpreting the Bible through the revelatory teachings of Neville Goddard, this isn’t a distant deity issuing judgement—but a direct summons from your own imagination, the true source of life and expression.
The Name: Lord of Hosts
The phrase “Lord of hosts” appears over 250 times in Scripture. In Hebrew, it is YHWH Tzva’ot—often translated as “I AM of armies” or “Self-Existent One of multitudes.”
Neville identifies the name “I AM” as the core of all being. This is the divine name revealed to Moses:
“I AM THAT I AM”...
“This is my name forever”
(Exodus 3:14–15)
When you say I AM, you are not merely describing yourself—you are invoking the creative power of the universe. I AM is imagination in its purest form, and the “hosts” are the infinite states—beliefs, identities, and assumptions—under its command. These are not outer armies, but inner forces: the patterns of thought and feeling that shape the world you experience.
The Lord of Hosts symbolises imagination itself, the host of many differing states of being. Imagination is the governing force that directs and commands the various subconscious states, or "hosts," which shape and create reality.
Expectation: The Imagination in Command
In Neville’s terms, the Lord of hosts is not only imagination—it is imagination with command and expectation. The armies (tzva’ot) are the invisible hosts of subconscious response, ready to fulfil the word spoken from within.
When you turn to the Lord of hosts, you turn to the seat of authority within you—the consciousness that expects the unseen to obey. Every assumption, every feeling, every persistent inner vision is a silent order sent to these hosts. Expectation is the flag under which they march.
Neville wrote:
“You rise or fall in life by the assumptions you hold…
Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled, and your assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.”
This is the Lord of hosts in action: the I AM, issuing decrees by feeling and imagination, commanding the hosts of reality to reflect the assumed truth.
“Turn Ye Unto Me”
When Zechariah says, “Turn ye unto me,” it is a cry to awaken to your centre of power. Stop bowing to external fact and return to the only source of transformation—the inner state.
To turn is to assume. It is to shift from despair to confidence, from memory to vision, from pleading to claiming. When you assume the state of your desire as though it already is, you have turned to the Lord of hosts. And what follows?
“I will turn unto you,” says the Scripture.
Reality bends to match the command of your expectation.
“Be Not As Your Fathers”
The “fathers” in this passage represent inherited beliefs—old ways of thinking that resisted the prophets, that refused to turn within. Neville would say they are states long accepted by the subconscious as true: fear, limitation, separation. These states produce after their kind until they are replaced by new assumptions.
To heed the prophet Zechariah is to break from inherited consciousness and become a conscious director of the hosts—one who knows that imagination, feeling, and expectation command reality.
A New Temple Begins Here
Zechariah’s prophecy will later unfold into visions of measuring lines, lamps, and a rebuilt temple—but none of that begins until the people return to the Lord of hosts. In Neville’s framework, this first step is everything. You must return to the I AM, acknowledge imagination as your divine source, and expect the unseen to obey your inner word.
The name Lord of hosts reminds us: imagination is not passive. It is not whim. It is divine command—a battalion of expectation sending forth its decree. When you assume the state of your desire, you enlist every host of reality to manifest it.
So, will you return? Will you command? Will you expect?
The Lord of hosts is waiting—not in heaven, but within your awareness, in the power of your own wonderful imagination.
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