a leader's own troops: the fighting companies massed with a named king or commander
This word belongs to the book of Ezekiel alone, and it never stands by itself. Every one of its seven appearances says whose troops they are: his troops, your troops, her troops, the fighting men attached to whoever was named a moment earlier. That possessive tie is the whole point of the word. Ezekiel is not describing an army in the abstract but the force a particular leader brought with him.
Three groups carry it:
- Zedekiah of Judah, whose helpers and troops are scattered to every wind in Ezekiel 12:14 and cut down by the sword in Ezekiel 17:21
- Gomer and Beth-togarmah, each named with its own companies as the northern coalition assembles in Ezekiel 38:6
- Gog himself, addressed twice as "you and all your troops" while the invasion is still climbing toward Israel, in Ezekiel 38:9 and Ezekiel 39:4
Because the troops belong to the leader, they share his verdict. When God scatters them to the wind or brings them down on the mountains, the sentence on the king is being carried out on every man he gathered. In the Gog chapters the prophet also keeps them distinct from the "many peoples" who come along, so the word marks a commander's own companies inside a far larger crowd.
The word most likely came into Hebrew from a neighboring language's word for "wing", which in military speech means the units spread out on either side of a main force. Whether or not that picture is still alive in Ezekiel, it matches how he uses it: not the standing army of a state, which Hebrew usually calls something else (חַיִל), and not a raiding party operating on its own (גְּדוּד), but the companies drawn up alongside a commander.