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Bible Encyclopedias
Armor
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or represented in the Auth. Vers. by several Heb. words, Gr. ὅπλα ), properly distinguished from ARMS as being military equipment for the protection of the person, while the latter denotes implements of aggressive warfare; but in the English Bible the former term alone is employed in both senses. In the records of a people like the children of Israel, so large a part of whose history was passed in warfare, we naturally look for much information, direct or indirect, on the arms and modes of fighting of the nation itself and of those with whom it came into contact. Unfortunately, however, the notices that we find in the Bible on these points are extremely few and meagre, while even those few, owing to the uncertainty which rests on the true meaning and force of the terms, do not convey to us nearly all the information which they might. This is the more to be regretted because the notices of the history, scanty as they are, are literally every thing we have to depend on, inasmuch as they are not yet supplemented and illustrated either by remains of the arms themselves, or by those commentaries which the sculptures, vases, bronzes, mosaics, and paintings of other nations furnish to the notices of manners and customs contained in their literature. (See, generally, Jahn's Archeology, § 266-285.) In order to give a clear view of this subject, we shall endeavor to show, succinctly and from the best authorities now available, what were the martial instruments borne upon the person, whether for attack or resistance, by the ancient Asiatics, leaving for other proper heads an explanation of the composition and tactical condition of their armies, their systems of fortification, their method of conducting sieges and battles, and their usages of war as regards spoil, captives, etc. (See BATTLE); (See FORTIFICATION); (See SIEGE); (See WAR), (See ARMY); (See FIGHT), (See FORTRESS), etc.
I. OFFENSIVE WEAPONS.
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