Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ephesians · About this commentary
Stand Therefore
Ephesians 6:14-18
14 Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, · WEB
Every piece of the armor is borrowed from a description of God himself, and the list ends in something that is not equipment at all.
Stand therefore. The command is repeated from the previous paragraph, and the pieces that follow are all fastened on in order to hold a position.
What is striking is where the equipment comes from. A prophet had described God arming himself for judgment, with righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation Isaiah 59:17. The same prophet had given the coming king a belt of righteousness and faithfulness Isaiah 11:5. So the armor issued here is God's own kit, item for item. That is what the phrase the armor of God meant in verse 11.
The pieces are named with their contents rather than as bare metaphors. The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. The feet fitted with the preparation of the Good News of peace — a soldier's readiness to move, and the message it carries is peace.
Verse 16 gives the shield of faith. The word is for the large body-length shield rather than the small round one, and what it stops is the fiery darts of the evil one. Verse 17 supplies the only offensive item in the list, and it is not the soldier's own: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Then verse 18, and the sentence does not stop for a new topic. With all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit — grammatically part of the same instruction, so prayer is not an addition to the armor but the manner of wearing it.
And the last words turn it outward: requests for all the saints. A passage about individual conflict ends in intercession for everybody else.
settled What this mark means