📖 Biblical Definition
A sentry is the soldier posted to perceive and report. Scripture has the same office under the more frequent name watchman: stationed on the city wall, awake while the city sleeps, accountable for warning. The sentry’s sin is silence. Ezekiel’s great commission passage: "if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand" (Ezekiel 33:6). Pastors, fathers, citizens — each holds a sentry’s post in proportion to his sphere. The unsounded alarm is the sentry’s gravest dereliction.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
A soldier set to keep watch and guard against approach or surprise.
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SENTRY, n. A soldier placed on guard; a sentinel; one whose duty is to watch and give notice of approaching danger.
Ezekiel 33 makes the office covenantal: God Himself appoints watchmen for His people, and judges them by whether they sounded the alarm in time.
📖 Key Scripture
Ezekiel 33:6 — "But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned... his blood will I require at the watchman's hand."
Ezekiel 3:17 — "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me."
Habakkuk 2:1 — "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower."
Mark 13:34 — "Commanded the porter to watch."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity has thinned the watchman office to a metaphor; Ezekiel 33 makes it a job description with eternal stakes.
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Ezekiel 33:6 puts the responsibility plainly: the watchman who sees the sword and does not blow the trumpet is responsible for the blood that follows. The office is not symbolic; it is one God still appoints and still judges.
Recover the sentry vocabulary in family, church, and ministry. Someone is on the wall; someone is watching the night. The Marine knows the discipline; the saint should not let the church forget it.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew tsophe (watchman, lookout) is the standard term.
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Hebrew tsophe — watchman, lookout; from tsaphah (to look out, scan).
Note: usmcmin.org's Watchman page leans on this whole word-family.
Usage
"Every household needs a sentry; every congregation does too."
"If the trumpet does not sound, blood is required at the watchman's hand."
"Silence on the wall is not neutrality."