Leather

Leather in Scripture is animal skin put to human use — covering, clothing, garment, vessel, belt. The vocabulary spreads across several plain words: "skin," "hide," "sealskin," and "leather" itself. Scripture traces the material from its first appearance as God-made garments in Eden, through the tabernacle's outer covering, to the leather belt that becomes the visible mark of a prophet.

Skins as Clothing

The first leather garment in Scripture is divinely made. After the fall, "the Speech of Yahweh God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them" (Gen 3:21). The covering is a finished garment of animal hide, given by God to replace the inadequate fig-leaf covering of the previous chapter.

The same vocabulary marks the prophetic costume centuries later. Of Elijah his pursuers report, "He was a hairy man, and girded with a loincloth of leather about his loins" (2 Ki 1:8). John the Baptizer, drawn into the same prophetic line, "was clothed with camel's hair, and [had] a leather loincloth about his loins, and ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6). The leather belt is the recognizable mark in both cases.

Hide as Refuse

Where the skin of a sacrificial animal is not put into use, it is destroyed with the rest of the carcass outside the camp. At the consecration of Aaron and his sons, "the bull, and its skin, and its flesh, and its dung, he burned with fire outside the camp; as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Lev 8:17). The hide here is not tanned or kept; it is treated as part of the offering's residue.

Sealskin Covering of the Tabernacle

The tabernacle's outermost layer was animal hide. The materials list for the sanctuary names "rams' skins dyed red, and sealskins, and acacia wood" (Ex 25:5), and the construction order calls for "a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sealskins above" (Ex 26:14). When the people bring the gifts, the same pairing recurs: "rams' skins dyed red, and sealskins, and acacia wood" (Ex 35:7). Bezalel's craftsmen execute the order: "he made a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sealskins above" (Ex 36:19). The completed inventory delivered to Moses includes "the covering of rams' skins dyed red, and the covering of sealskins, and the veil of the screen" (Ex 39:34).

In transit the same skins protect the holy furniture. The Levites "put on it a covering of sealskin, and will spread over it a cloth of all blue above, and will put in its staves" (Num 4:6), and they "bear the curtains of the tabernacle, and the tent of meeting, its covering, and the covering of sealskin that is above on it" (Num 4:25). Sealskin is the durable outermost shell — weather-facing, abrasion-resistant — protecting the dyed rams' skins beneath, which in turn cover the goats'-hair tent over the linen curtains.

Sealskin as Fine Footwear

The same material that shields the tabernacle reappears in a prophetic image of luxury. Yahweh, recounting his care for foundling Jerusalem, says, "I clothed you also with embroidered work, and put sandals on you with sealskin, and I bound you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk" (Eze 16:10). Sealskin is here a high-end footwear material, set alongside embroidered cloth, fine linen, and silk.