BOOT (סְאﯴן, H6007, shoe, sandal; ὑπόδημα, G5687, shoe, sandal; σανδάλιον, G4908, sandal). Distinct from sandals and shoes, the customary footwear of the E, the boot is mentioned only twice in Scripture. The word seōn (Isa 9:5) prob. refers to the Assyrian military boot, which extended up the calf. Gesenius renders the phrase “every boot of the tramping warrior,” i.e. the marching soldier. Gesenius (p. 684) suggests a loan word, Assyrian senu, which he nevertheless tr. “shoe” or “sandal.”

Paul’s allusion, “having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15), is a reference to the Rom. soldier’s hobnailed boot, the caliga, from which Gaius Caesar derived his nickname, Caligula. It was a boot of leather laced up the shin (Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, p. 269). Centurions wore a better article, the Bardaicus calceus, named from the Bardaei, an Illyrian tribe (Juvenal, 16:13; 3:24; 16:24, 25). Another common word for boot was calceus, which could include shoe. The Vul. tr. of Ephesians 6:15 is “et calceati pedes in praeparatione evangelii pacis.”