a tunic: the shirt worn next to the body, the innermost visible layer of clothing for men and women alike
This is the everyday shirt worn closest to the skin, under any outer robe or cloak. It was usually made of linen, reached down toward the ankles, and probably had sleeves, with a reinforced opening for the head to pass through. Men and women both wore it. It was the last thing taken off at night and the basic covering a person could not do without.
Because it was the layer nearest the body, the one word stretches across a wide social range. It is the plain garment God makes for the first man and woman, the linen shirt the priests put on to serve at the sanctuary, and the special version, marked out by rank, that Jacob gives Joseph and that the king's unmarried daughters wore. In each case it is the same kind of shirt; what changes is its quality and who is wearing it.
Two of its most memorable uses turn on the same gesture: tearing the tunic. When Joseph's brothers strip his and dip it in blood, and when Tamar rips hers after she is violated, the torn garment publicly announces grief and disgrace, the same act by which mourners and defeated men tore their clothes.
Nuances
What the phrase for Joseph's tunic (Genesis 37, and the same phrase for Tamar's garment in 2 Samuel 13:18-19) actually describes.
- majorityA tunic reaching to the extremities: a long, ankle-length robe with sleeves, since the plural form points to hands and feet, and Josephus describes Tamar's garment as reaching the wrists and ankles.; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel, Anchor Bible (1984), 325-326; John Skinner, Genesis, ICC (1910), 444
- minorityAn ornamented tunic covered with sewn-on decoration, from a proposed link to an Akkadian term for the appliqued ornaments on ceremonial robes.; E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible (1964), 289-290