Torches

Torches in Scripture appear both as practical implements of illumination and as vivid images of power, judgment, and divine glory. In the account of Jesus's arrest in Gethsemane, the cohort of soldiers and officers sent by the chief priests came equipped with "lanterns and torches and weapons" (John 18:3), lighting the dark garden for their search. Nahum 2:3–4 employs the image of torches to depict the terrifying advance of the Babylonian army against Nineveh: "The chariots flash like torches in the day of his preparation." In the Old Testament, the torch (lapid) appears in Abram's covenant ceremony, where "a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces" (Genesis 15:17), representing God's self-binding oath. Samson used torches tied to foxes' tails to burn the Philistines' grain fields (Judges 15:4–5). Daniel 10:6 describes the angelic messenger with "eyes like flaming torches," an image of searching, penetrating divine sight echoed in Revelation's portrait of Christ (Revelation 1:14).