The noun χιτων (chiton) describes a garment, specifically an inner or undergarment, worn on the skin, usually covered by an ιματιον (imation), or outer garment.

Our noun χιτων (chiton) is not native to Greek but was imported from the Semitic language basin — the Hebrew word for tunic is כתנת (kuttonet) — probably together with the alphabet and a slew of abstract terms that helped form the Greek mind (see our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek).

The noun χιτων (chiton) occurs 11 times in the New Testament, see full concordance.

The noun χλαμυς (chlamus) describes a short mantle, mostly military and specifically indicative of cavalry. But the classics show that it was also worn by kings and civilians. Specifically, the deities Hermes and Eros were noted to wear this particular garment. All together this garment seems to have indicated the wearer's personal autonomy, agility and might. In the New Testament, our word occurs in Matthew 27:28 and 27:31 only, in the scene where Jesus is stripped naked and fit with a purple mantle, in a kind of "emperor's new clothes" sort of way.

The pun (if there is one) is of course that Jesus embodies the salvation that comes from collectivity and working together — which is a Biblical theme that runs from the Creator's first observation of something being not good, namely Adam's aloneness (Genesis 2:18), to Adam's grandson Enosh, in whose days people "began to call upon the name YHWH" (Genesis 4:26), to the idea that the Word of God may come in human form (which is language, of course), to the famous maxim "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit" (Zechariah 4:6) and Paul's urging for the people of God "to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; there being one Body and one Spirit" (Ephesians 4:4, John 17:21-23): "For it is by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:8), and the word for "grace", namely χαρις (charis), describes collective joy or social felicity, and not some individual favor, also because that does not exist with God (Romans 2:11).

The Romans were pagans who believed in personality cults, personal favors by entreated deities and personal lords and saviors. And so they did not understand Jesus and tried to insult him, not realizing that his followers weren't standing idly by, waiting for orders, but were imitating God, Jesus and each other (1 Corinthians 11:1, Ephesians 5:1, Galatians 6:2), and being like Christ in everything, not only shared in his suffering (Romans 8:17) but also partook in his anointment (1 John 2:27) and were Christs as much as Jesus was (Exodus 19:6), partaking in the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4), which is complete and entire unity (Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 45:6-7, John 14:12).

Like the previous word, this noun is also Hebrew in origin. It's a transliteration of the noun גלום (gelom), from the verb גלם (galam), to wrap or fold together. From this same root comes the familiar noun גלם (golem), meaning embryo (Psalm 139:16) or Golem (as in the "Golem of Prague" or Tolkien's "Gollum the Creature").

Also note that the Bible is about the formation of language and text, and not about physical humans in history — or else the Word would be subject to time and time would be greater than the Word. Instead, the Word is greater than time and time is subjected to the Word. That means that the Bible is about eternally true law and not about unique events on some timeline. The Bible is like the Periodic Table of consciousness, and provides a fundamental layer to the total entirety of human experience. Said otherwise, E = mc² is not true because it "really happened" that one time, and some eyewitness quickly wrote it down. Instead, E = mc² is true always and anywhere, because it is contained in the great symmetry (i.e. unity or oneness) that is the foundation of all reality and that eternally governs all economy at any scale anywhere in the universe (Colossians 1:16-17).

That said, the words "text" and "textile" (and "technology": see Exodus 31:1-11) stem from the same Proto-Indo-European root "teks-", meaning to weave. So anytime we read about someone donning or doing something with some sort of clothing — from Adam and Eve dressing up in fig leave (Genesis 3:7), to baby Jesus wrapped in cloths (Luke 2:7), David severing a slip off Saul's robe (1 Samuel 24:4), God's robe trailing through the temple (Isaiah 6:1) and Paul asking for a blanket from half around the world (2 Timothy 4:13) — we're looking at metaphors for texts. God is not concerned with oxen (1 Corinthians 9:9), and he's surely even less concerned with cloaks and blankets.

The word for the earthly profession of Jesus and Joseph, namely that of τεκτων (tekton), meaning "assembler" (and not "carpenter"), also derives from this root "teks-" and is also about text.