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Luke 5:36 (NLT)
Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.

DRAWING NOTES:

TIME OF DAY:
Unspecified in Bible narrative. I have set this picture in the mid afternoon.

LIGHTING NOTES:
The sun (unseen in West (left)) illuminates this scene, casting shadows below & to the right of figures and objects.

CHARACTERS PRESENT:
A man holding up an old coat. A woman, with needle and thread.

RESEARCH/ADDITIONAL NOTES:
This is a fairly simple picture, showing the outcome of sewing a patch of unshrunk cloth to an old garment.

The Greek word translated as “garment” in English is “himation” (pronounced “him-at’-ee-on”, which can mean a garment, raiment, clothes, cloak, robe, vesture or apparel.

The Enclopaedia Britannia defines “himation” as…
“A mantle or wrap worn by Greek men and women from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods (c. 750–30 bce). A very large rectangle of fabric, the himation was draped in different ways—e.g., as a shawl, a cloak, or a head covering—during various periods.

Usually made of white wool, the version worn by women could be of coloured silk or cotton. A somewhat shorter Greek wrap was known as a chlamys.”
[Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/himation]

As Jesus explained in his parable… “the patch shrinks and pulls away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger hole than before.” What did Jesus mean? A patch of brand new, previously unwashed (unshrunk) fabric would naturally shrink with washing. Jesus’ hearers knew that putting a new patch of material on an old garment would only make the problem of the hole in the old garment much worse. When the new patch inevitably shrinks in the wash, it will tear away from the older garment, making the tear even worse than before. But what was Jesus referring too? In this metaphor, the old garment is the system of rules and traditions of men; especially the highly legalistic laws and traditions of the Pharisees. The new patch is the way of Christ; the new way of faith in Jesus, leading to freedom from sin and a discarding of the old system of rules, mostly made up by men. Jesus was not concerned with “patching up” the old religious system as practised by the Pharisees; He was establishing a new covenant (a binding agreement and/or a solemn promise to do or refrain from doing something), even as He fulfilled the old Mosaic laws (see Matthew 5:17).

Here is the scene without the figures in the foreground.

Background of Luke 05 – Parable of new cloth on old robe

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Background of Luke 05 – Parable of new cloth on old robe