Albert Barnes Commentary Ephesians 6:14

"Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness," — Ephesians 6:14 (ASV)

Stand therefore. Resist every attack—as a soldier does in battle. In what way they were to do this, and how they were to be armed, the apostle proceeds to specify; and, in doing it, gives a description of the ancient armour of a soldier.

Having your loins girt about. The girdle, or sash, was always an important part of the dress of the ancients, in war as well as in peace. They wore loose, flowing robes, and it became necessary to gird them up when they travelled, ran, or laboured. The girdle was often highly ornamented and was the place where they carried their money, their sword, their pipe, their writing instruments, etc. (see Barnes on Matthew 5:38-41). The girdle seems sometimes to have been a cincture of iron or steel, designed to keep every part of the armour in its place and to gird the soldier on every side.

With truth. It may not be easy to determine with entire accuracy the resemblance between the parts of the armour specified in this description and the things with which they are compared, or to determine precisely why he compared truth to a girdle and righteousness to a breastplate, rather than why he should have chosen a different order and compared righteousness to a girdle, etc.

Perhaps in themselves there may have been no special reason for this arrangement. The object may have been merely to specify the different parts of a soldier's armour and to compare them with the weapons that Christians were to use, though the comparison may have been made somewhat at random.

In some of the cases, however, we can see a particular significance in the comparisons that are made; and it may not be improper to make suggestions of that kind as we go along. The idea here may be that as the girdle was the bracer up, or support of the body, so truth is fitted to brace us up and to gird us for constancy and firmness.

The girdle kept all the parts of the armour in their proper place and preserved firmness and consistency in the dress; and so truth might serve to give consistency and firmness to our conduct. "Great," says Grotius, "is the laxity of falsehood; truth binds the man."

Truth preserves a man from those lax views of morals, of duty, and of religion, which leave him exposed to every assault. It makes the soul sincere, firm, constant, and always on its guard. A man who has no consistent views of truth is just the man for the adversary successfully to assail.

And having on the breastplate. The word here rendered breastplate—ywrax—denoted the cuirass (Latin: lorica), or coat of mail; that is, the armour that covered the body from the neck to the thighs and consisted of two parts, one covering the front and the other the back. It was made of rings, or in the form of scales, or of plates, so fastened together that they would be flexible and yet guard the body from a sword, spear, or arrow.

It is referred to in the Scriptures as a coat of mail (1 Samuel 17:5), an habergeon (Nehemiah 4:16), or as a breastplate. We are told that Goliath's coat of mail weighed five thousand shekels of brass, or nearly one hundred and sixty pounds. It was often formed of plates of brass, laid one upon another, like the scales of a fish. The illustrations on the opposite page will give an idea of this ancient piece of armour.

Of righteousness. This means integrity, holiness, purity of life, and sincerity of piety. The breastplate defended the vital parts of the body; and the idea here may be that integrity of life and righteousness of character are as necessary to defend us from the assaults of Satan as the coat of mail was to preserve the heart from an enemy's arrows.

It was the incorruptible integrity of Job and, in a higher sense, of the Redeemer himself, that saved them from the temptations of the devil. And it is as true now that no one can successfully meet the power of temptation unless he is righteous, just as a soldier could not defend himself against a foe without such a coat of mail.

A lack of integrity will leave a man exposed to the enemy's assaults, just as a man would be whose coat of mail was defective or had a missing part. The king of Israel was struck by an arrow shot from a bow at a venture, between the joints of his harness, or the breastplate, (margin) (1 Kings 22:34); and many a man who thinks he has on the Christian armour is struck in the same manner.

There is some defect of character, some lack of incorruptible integrity, some point that is unguarded—and that will be sure to be the point of attack by the foe. So David was tempted to commit the enormous crimes that stain his memory, and Peter to deny his Lord. So Judas was assailed, for want of the armour of righteousness, through his avarice; and so, by some lack of incorruptible integrity in a single point, many a minister of the gospel has been assailed and has fallen.

It may be added here that we need a righteousness that God alone can give—the righteousness of God our Saviour—to make us perfectly invulnerable to all the arrows of the foe.