The next thing the shoterim had to do was to appoint captains to head the people who were going to war. The army was divided into bands or companies, and over each of these a captain was placed, whose it was to command and lead (cf.
Numbers 31:14, Numbers 31:48; 1 Samuel 8:12; 1 Samuel 22:7; 2 Samuel 18:1). Captains of the armies. The phrase, "captain of a host" ( שַׂר צָבָא), usually designates the general or commander-in-chief of the entire army (Genesis 21:22; 2 Samuel 2:8; 1 Kings 16:16, etc.
); but here the phrase is used in the plural of the chiefs of the companies or detachments of which the whole was composed.