Armour

When armour is mentioned in the Bible, this does not refer to a suit of armour that covers the entire body. Armour in the Bible is a cuirass or scale armour.

Israelite soldiers generally did not wear armour, only a shield to protect their body. In the Bible, armour is primarily worn by kings and army commanders.

A cuirass was made of strips of leather or metal. At the front they were attached to each other and then fastened across the shoulders with straps. This protected the torso.

The cuirass originally hails from Greece. We know from depictions that the Sea Peoples, who probably included the Philistines, wore a cuirass. They may have brought this type of armour to Israel.

Scale armour was a leather apron onto which small metal plates were fastened in an overlapping pattern. It was lighter and more flexible than a cuirass, allowing soldiers to move more freely. Scale armour was especially important for archers or charioteers, because they did not have any hands free to protect themselves with a shield.

Scale armour was already in use in Egypt in the fifteenth century BC. The Assyrians also used scale armour.
1 Kings 22:34 describes how King Ahab of Israel is killed by an arrow that struck him between the joints of his armour. This could possibly have occurred in his armpit, which is a well-known weak spot in scale armour.

On a few occasions in the Bible, armour is also used as a metaphor, for example for God’s righteousness. Isaiah 59:17 states, “He will wear justice like a coat of armour and saving power like a helmet”. In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, armour is used as an image for Christians preparing themselves for the coming of Christ, wearing “faith and love as a breastplate”.