a scale: one of the small hard plates that overlap to cover a fish or a river beast, and the same shape in metal on a soldier's armored coat.
One picture stands behind every use of this word: a surface built out of many small hard plates laid over one another, so that it bends with the body underneath and still turns aside whatever strikes it. The Bible shows that surface in three places.
- the plates on a fish, which Israel's food laws make the test of what may be eaten
- the plates on the great beast lying in the Nile, which Ezekiel pictures the river's fish sticking fast to
- the rows of bronze plates sewn onto a warrior's battle coat
The food laws lean on the word for a rule anyone could apply standing at the water's edge, with no expert to consult. A water creature that has both fins (סְנַפִּיר) and scales may be eaten; one that lacks them may not. Two visible features sort the whole of the sea and the rivers, and the law never explains why those two were chosen. It only tells Israel what to look for.
The two remaining uses pull the same image in opposite directions. In Ezekiel, God hooks the huge creature that lies in the Nile and hauls it out with the river's fish stuck to its scales, a picture of Pharaoh dragged from the waters he boasts of owning. In 1 Samuel the traffic runs the other way: Goliath's coat (שִׁרְיוֹן) is called a coat of scales, human armor named for the animal covering it copies.