Scripture Daily

Context No. 1105 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 15:1-7: in context

1When those who were in the tents heard, they were amazed at what happened. 2Trembling and fear fell upon them, and no man dared stay any more in the sight of his neighbor, but rushing out with one accord, they fled into every way of the plain and of the hill country. 3Those who had encamped in the hill country round about Bethulia fled away. And then the children of Israel, every one who was a warrior among them, rushed out upon them. 4Ozias sent to Betomasthaim, Bebai, Chobai, and Chola, and to every border of Israel, to tell about the things that had been accomplished, and that all should rush upon their enemies to destroy them. 5But when the children of Israel heard this, they all fell upon them with one accord, and struck them to Chobai. Yes, and in like manner also, people from Jerusalem and from all the hill country came (for men had told them about what happened in their enemies’ camp), and those who were in Gilead and in Galilee fell upon their flank with a great slaughter, until they were past Damascus and its borders. 6The rest of the people who lived at Bethulia fell upon the camp of Asshur, and plundered them, and were enriched exceedingly. 7The children of Israel returned from the slaughter, and got possession of that which remained. The villages and the cities that were in the hill country and in the plain country took many spoils; for there was an exceedingly great supply.

Judith has slipped into the enemy camp and killed the Assyrian general Holofernes, carrying his head back to Bethulia. When the news breaks in the Assyrian camp, panic sweeps through it; the soldiers, leaderless and terrified, flee in every direction. The Israelites, who had been on the edge of surrender from thirst and despair, pour out and rout them, chasing them far beyond their borders, and all Israel, alerted, joins the slaughter and takes vast plunder from the camp of the enemy that had besieged them.

The reversal is total, and it turns on a single act of faith by one woman. The Assyrian army was vast, well-supplied, and confident; Bethulia was a starving town about to give up. Then Judith did the one thing no one expected, and when the news of Holofernes's death spread, the whole imposing army dissolved into panic and flight. The giant that had seemed unstoppable collapsed from the inside, its strength revealed as fragile the moment its head was gone. There is encouragement here for anyone facing something that looks overwhelming. The thing that terrifies you may be far less solid than it appears; its size and noise can hide a brittleness that one act of faith, at the right point, brings down. God used a widow with a sword, not an army, and the enemy destroyed itself in the panic that followed. What looked immovable was toppled by courage placed exactly where God directed it. The starving town that nearly surrendered ended the day enriched with the spoils of the very army that had besieged it.

What looms over me as unstoppable, and can I trust that, like the Assyrian host, it may be more brittle than it appears, ready to collapse when God's people act in faith at the point he directs?

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