Habergeon is an old English word for a coat of armour covering the chest. It turns up a few times in the King James Bible. Job describes a creature that no “spear, the dart, nor the habergeon” can stop, and Exodus uses it for the strong collar of the priest’s robe, made “that it be not rent.” Its cousin, the breastplate, carries the larger meaning: God puts on “righteousness as a breastplate,” and Paul tells believers to wear “the breastplate of righteousness” and “the breastplate of faith and love.” Ephesians 6 puts the whole suit together.
5 verses
And there shall be an hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof: it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of an habergeon, that it be not rent.
And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod:
For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
An Old English word for breastplate. In Job 41:26 (Heb. shiryah) it is properly a “coat of mail;” the Revised Version has “pointed shaft.” In Ex. 28:32, 39:23, it denotes a military garment strongly and thickly woven and covered with mail round the neck and breast. Such linen corselets have been found in Egypt. The word used in these verses is tahra, which is of Egyptian origin. The Revised Version, however, renders it by “coat of mail.” (See ARMOUR.)
William Smith, 1884
a coat of mail covering the neck and breast. [ARMS, ARMOR]