Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Let Us Watch and Be Sober
1 Thessalonians 5:6-8
6 so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober. · WEB
Sleep here means something different from chapter 4's sleep — and the armor named is made of the letter's own triad.
So then let's not sleep, as the rest do, but let's watch and be sober. The verb is not the one used of the Christian dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:13; that was koimaō, and this is ordinary slumber used morally. The letter has two sleeps and keeps them apart — one is a state to be comforted about, the other a condition to be shaken off.
Verse 7 gives the observation the metaphor rests on: sleepers sleep at night, and drunks are drunk at night. Both belong to a time the readers have been told they are not in. And sobriety is set against unawareness rather than indulgence — the drunk and the sleeper share an inability to register what is happening around them.
Then verse 8 arms them, and the equipment is familiar. The breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. It is the triad of 1 Thessalonians 1:3 issued as armor, and Isaiah supplies the original picture, where God himself wears the breastplate and helmet Isaiah 59:17. What is defended is the chest and the head — nothing here covers a retreat.
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