a fine outer robe: the good clothing a person puts on when appearance matters, marking rank, honor, or heavenly standing
The word started out meaning a whole outfit, the gear a person was equipped with, and only later narrowed to a single garment. What stayed with it was the idea of being fully and properly dressed. By the New Testament it names a fine outer robe: not the everyday cloak (ἱμάτιον) that nearly everyone owned, and not the tunic worn underneath it (χιτών), but the garment brought out when someone is meant to be seen.
The Greek Old Testament is what gives the word its weight. There it is the regular term for the priests' holy garments and for the robe of honor a king throws over a man he is promoting. So it reached the New Testament already carrying a charge of holiness, rank, and celebration, and the writers use it exactly where a garment says something about the person inside it.
That is why every use in the New Testament turns on what the robe signals:
- the showy robes of teachers who liked being noticed in the marketplace
- the finest robe in the house, brought out to welcome a ruined son home
- the shining white robe of the messenger the women met at the empty tomb
- the white robes handed to God's people as they stand before his throne
One caution about length. Older English Bibles say "long clothing" or "long robes," and the robes in view usually were long. But length is not built into the word, which says "fine and dignifying" and leaves the cut to the setting.
Nuances
Whether the robes worn by the scribes were a recognizable professional or liturgical costume, or simply fine clothing worn ostentatiously.
- minorityScribes were distinguished by full-length tasseled mantles that marked them out as scholars and men of eminence, so the criticism targets a known scribal dress.; James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (Pillar New Testament Commentary)
- majorityThe role and standing of scribes varied too widely in the period for a fixed costume to be assumed; the criticism is of ostentatious fine dress, not of a defined vestment.; Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period (JSOTSup 291); Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society
What the father's finest robe confers on the returning son in the parable.
- majorityIt publicly reinstates him as an honored son rather than a hired hand, covering his shame before a watching village that would recognize the robe.; Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes; Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels
- minorityThe robe, ring and sandals together evoke festal joy and the coming banquet more than a legal restoration of status.; Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus
- minorityThe details should not be allegorized at all; the parable operates at the level of family and honor, so the robe is not a cipher for imputed righteousness.; Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus
Whether the white robe marks the young man at the tomb as a heavenly messenger, and whether Mark intends a further baptismal echo.
- majorityThe white robe, the women's alarm, and the parallel in Matthew that calls the figure an angel together mark him as a heavenly messenger.; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark (Hermeneia); Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible)
- minorityMark deliberately writes young man rather than angel, and the description should not be collapsed into the angelic convention.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (New International Greek Testament Commentary); Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross
- minorityThe young man who flees stripped at the arrest and the young man robed in white at the tomb together picture the baptismal candidate who puts off the old and is clothed anew.; Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff, "Baptism in Mark: Dying and Rising with Christ," Journal of Biblical Literature 92.4 (1973) 531-548
What the white robe given to each martyred soul under the altar represents.
- majorityPurity together with God's vindication of the martyrs, assuring them of their righteous standing when judgment comes.; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary); Grant R. Osborne, Revelation (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), 286-288
- minorityVictory and public vindication, with the white echoing the triumphant general and the winning athlete alongside purity.; Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (New International Commentary on the New Testament); Craig R. Koester, Revelation (Anchor Yale Bible)
- minorityA temporary heavenly body given to the disembodied souls as an interim covering until the resurrection.; R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John (International Critical Commentary); G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (Black's New Testament Commentaries)
What it means that the great multitude washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
- majorityThe Lamb's sacrificial death cleanses them, so the whiteness is the purity and righteous standing his blood secures for them.; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary); Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (New International Commentary on the New Testament)
- minorityThose ransomed by the Lamb share in his victory precisely through their own martyrdom, following his path to death.; Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy, 228-230
Disputed
Whether length belongs to the meaning of the word or is only a feature of the garments it happens to describe.
- majorityThe word means a fine, dignifying robe, and length is supplied by context; classical usage runs from military equipment to any formal outfit, so nothing about length is built in.; Liddell, Scott and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. στολή; W. Michaelis, "στολή," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 7:687-691
- minorityThe word denotes a long, flowing robe worn by persons of high rank, so length is part of what it says.; BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. στολή; Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. στολή