Lantern

The lantern appears once in scripture, in the night arrest of Jesus. Its presence belongs to the apparatus of an armed search party.

In the arrest of Jesus

When Judas leads the arresting force into the garden, the equipment list is specific. John 18:3: "Judas then, having received the battalion [of soldiers], and attendants from the chief priests and from the Pharisees, comes there with lanterns and torches and weapons."

The lanterns stand alongside torches and weapons in the same clause — light-bearing tools carried by men coming to take a prisoner at night.