Brigandine

The "brigandine" of older English Bibles is rendered "coat of mail" in the UPDV. The garment appears in two oracles of Jeremiah, named twice as part of a soldier's full kit and standing on opposite sides of the battle line — first on Egypt's army marshaled at Carchemish, then on Babylon's defenders being told their armor will not save them.

Egypt's Army at Carchemish

Jeremiah's call to Egypt's mobilization names the coat of mail in the same breath as horse, helmet, and spear: "Harness the horses, and get up, you⁺ horsemen, and stand forth with your⁺ helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail" (Jer 46:4). The verse uses the plural-you forms; the imperative is addressed to the troops directly, and the coat of mail is one of the items they are told to put on as the army assembles.

The Coat of Mail in the Oracle Against Babylon

In the long oracle against Babylon, the same armor is named on the other side of the engagement: "Against [him who] bends let the archer bend his bow, and against [him who] lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and don't spare⁺ her young men; destroy⁺ completely all her host" (Jer 51:3). Here the coat of mail is on the defender, the man who "lifts himself up" inside it; the command is that he be shot through it. The two passages set the garment within the same theatre of judgment-by-warfare — armor that goes on in Egypt's verse and is pierced in Babylon's.