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ban´ẽr (ENSIGN, STANDARD): The English word “banner†is from banderia, Low Latin, meaning a banner (compare bandum, Latin, which meant first a “band,†an organized military troop, and then a “flagâ€). It has come to mean a flag, or standard, carried at the head of a military band or body, to indicate the line of march, or the rallying point, and it is now applied, in its more extended significance, to royal, national, or ecclesiastical “banners†also. We find it applied sometimes to a streamer on the end of a lance, such as is used by the Arab sheik today. “Banner†occurs in the following significant Old Testament passages: (1) in the singular, “Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain†( the King James Version); “a banner to them that fear thee†(); and (2) in the plur., “In the name of our God we will set up our banner†(); “terrible as an army with banner†().
1. Military Ensigns Among the Hebrews
The Hebrews, it would seem, like the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and other ancient nations, had military ensigns. As bearing upon this question, a very significant passage is that found in : “The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their fathers' houses.†“Standard-bearer†in the King James Version, “They shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth,†is not a case in point, but is to be rendered as in the Revised Version, margin, “as when a si ck man pineth away.â€
In this noted passage a distinction seems intentionally made (another view is held by some) between “the ensigns of their fathers' houses†(literally, “signsâ€; compare , where the reference is thought by some today to be to the standards of Antiochus' army), and “the standards†of the four great divisions of the Hebrew tribes in the wilderness (compare the “banner†of and , ).
2. A Distinction with a Difference
The relation of these to the “standard†of f (Hebrew neÌ„sÌ£, the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) “standardâ€) is by no means clear. The word neÌ„sÌ£, here translated “standard,†seems to have meant at first a pole set up on an eminence as a signal for mustering troops (compare “mast†the English Revised Version, margin). But it occurs frequently in the prophets both in this literal and original sense, and in the figurative or derived sense of a rallying point for God's people (see ; ; and elsewhere). Here the rendering in English Versions of the Bible alternates between “ensign†and “banner†(see HDB, 1-vol, article “Bannerâ€).