Chains

In Scripture a chain is at once an honor and a humiliation. The same metal that adorns the neck of a vizier in Egypt or a regent in Babylon also runs through the wrist of a deposed king on the road to Babylon. The Hebrew sanctuary uses chains of gold for its ornament; prophets and apostles, demoniacs and angels are bound and unbound by them. The biblical vocabulary of chains, fetters, and bonds tracks the full arc from royal investiture to gospel-imprisonment, and finally to the binding of the dragon.

Chains as Honor

A gold chain functions as a sign of a king's favor. When Pharaoh raised Joseph over the house of Egypt, "Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it on Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck" (Gen 41:42). The same ceremony, almost word for word, is offered for the reader of the writing on the wall: whoever could interpret it would be "clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and will be the third ruler in the kingdom" (Dan 5:7), and Belshazzar performed the investiture on Daniel: "they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom" (Dan 5:29).

Beyond the royal court, chains belong to the broader vocabulary of ornament and tribute. The captains of Israel bring "jewels of gold, ankle-chains, and bracelets, signet-rings, earrings, and armlets" as an oblation to Yahweh after the Midianite war (Num 31:50). The spoils that Gideon takes from the kings of Midian include not only crescents and purple raiment but "the chains that were about their camels' necks" (Jud 8:26).

The Sanctuary Chain

Chains are also a feature of priestly and temple work. The breastplate of the high priest is fastened with chains of gold: "and two chains of pure gold; like cords you will make them, of wreathed work: and you will put the wreathed chains on the settings" (Ex 28:14). The fabrication record reports the same: "they made on the breastplate chains like cords, of wreathed work of pure gold" (Ex 39:15). In Solomon's temple, chains of gold mark off the inner sanctuary — "he drew chains of gold across before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold" (1Ki 6:21) — and "wreaths of chain-work" decorate the capitals of the two great pillars (1Ki 7:17).

Bands and Fetters

The other face of the chain is captivity. The Philistines blind Samson and "bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground in the prison-house" (Jud 16:21). Manasseh, taken by the captains of the king of Assyria, is led "in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2Ch 33:11). Jehoiakim is treated the same way: Nebuchadnezzar "bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon" (2Ch 36:6). Zedekiah's end is the most brutal — his sons slain before his eyes, his own eyes put out, and the king himself "bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2Ki 25:7). Jeremiah's release records the same instrument from the prisoner's side: Nebuzaradan "had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, who were carried away captive to Babylon" (Je 40:1), and tells him at Ramah, "I loose you this day from the chains which are on your hand" (Jer 40:4).

The Psalter remembers this exercise of judgment as part of Yahweh's warfare through his people: "To bind their kings with chains, And their nobles with fetters of iron" (Ps 149:8).

The Demoniac No Chain Could Hold

The Gospels keep the same vocabulary but turn it against a power that the available iron does not hold. The Gerasene demoniac is described as one who "had his dwelling in the tombs: and no man could anymore bind him, no, not with a chain; because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent apart by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him" (Mark 5:3-4). The manacles of the region cannot hold him. Closely allied is the political imprisonment of John the Baptist: "Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold on John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias" (Mr 6:17).

Paul's Gospel-Chain

Paul takes the language of imprisonment and refashions it. He calls himself "an ambassador in chains" (Eph 6:20), insists that his "bonds" are part of "the defense and confirmation of the good news" (Phil 1:7), signs off Colossians with the line, "Remember my bonds. Grace be with you⁺" (Col 4:18), and singles out Onesiphorus for praise: "he often refreshed me, and wasn't ashamed of my chain" (2Ti 1:16). The matching note is struck in the second letter to Timothy: "I suffer hardship to bonds, as a criminal; but the word of God is not bound" (2Ti 2:9). The chain is real; the gospel it tries to silence is not chained at all.

Wisdom's Chain, Pride's Chain

Chains pull double duty in the wisdom literature. Worn rightly, they ornament; worn wrongly, they crush. Proverbs makes the parental instruction itself a chain: "they will be a chaplet of grace to your head, And chains about your neck" (Pr 1:9). Sirach extends the same image to wisdom herself, who comes first as a discipline and only then as an ornament — "Incline your shoulder and carry her; And do not be weary of her bundle ... Her yoke is an ornament of gold; And her bonds are a cord of blue" (Sir 6:25, 6:30) — and finishes with the contrast between the wise and the foolish learner: "[As] chains on [their] feet, [so] is instruction to the foolish, And as manacles on their right hand" (Sir 21:19), whereas "As a golden ornament is instruction to the wise, And as a bracelet upon their right arm" (Sir 21:21). The same chain is golden ornament to one and iron manacle to the other. Sirach also names the chain as a tool of household discipline for an unruly servant: "if he does not obey make his fetters heavy" (Sir 33:28).

The same image works in the Psalms and Lamentations as a figure of the proud and the punished. "Pride is as a chain about their neck; Violence covers them as a garment" (Ps 73:6); the man under judgment in Lamentations cries, "He has walled me about, that I can't go forth; he has made my chain heavy" (La 3:7).

The Chain of Judgment

When the prophet is told to enact a coming judgment in symbol, the instrument is again the chain: "Make the chain; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence" (Eze 7:23). The oracle that follows describes a kingdom whose holy places are profaned, whose prophet has no vision, and whose king mourns: "I will do to them after their way, and according to their deserts I will judge them; and they will know that I am Yahweh" (Eze 7:27).

The New Testament extends the chain into the realm of fallen spiritual powers. Jude writes that the angels "who did not keep their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness to the judgment of the great day" (Jude 1:6); 2 Peter says the same: God "did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them to chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment" (2Pe 2:4).

The Angel and the Dragon

The biblical chain takes a final use in Revelation. An angel comes "down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years" (Re 20:1-2). The instrument that bound prophets, kings, and apostles is, in the end, set on the adversary himself.