Scripture Daily

Context No. 1133 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 16:17-25: in context

17“Woe to the nations who rise up against my race! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment and put fire and worms in their flesh; and they will weep and feel their pain forever.” 18Now when they came to Jerusalem, they worshiped God. When the people were purified, they offered their whole burnt offerings, their free will offerings, and their gifts. 19Judith dedicated all Holofernes’ stuff, which the people had given her, and gave the canopy, which she had taken for herself out of his bedchamber, for a gift to the Lord. 20And the people continued feasting in Jerusalem before the sanctuary for three months, and Judith remained with them. 21After these days, everyone departed to his own inheritance. Judith went away to Bethulia, and remained in her own possession, and was honorable in her time in all the land. 22Many desired her, but no man knew her all the days of her life from the day that Manasses her husband died and was gathered to his people. 23She increased in greatness exceedingly; and she grew old in her husband’s house, to one hundred five years. She let her maid go free. Then she died in Bethulia. They buried her in the cave of her husband Manasses. 24The house of Israel mourned for her seven days. She distributed her goods before she died to all those who were nearest of kin to Manasses her husband, and to those who were nearest of her own kindred. 25There was no one who made the children of Israel afraid any more in the days of Judith, nor for a long time after her death.

After Judith's song of victory, the people go up to Jerusalem to worship, offer their sacrifices, and Judith dedicates the spoils of Holofernes to the Lord. They feast for three months. Then everyone returns home, and Judith goes back to Bethulia, to her own household, where she lives out a long and honored life. Many wanted to marry her, but she remained a widow all her days. She freed her maid, lived to a hundred and five, distributed her goods to her kin before she died, and was mourned seven days. And as long as she lived, and for a long time after, no one troubled Israel.

What is striking is the quietness of Judith's later life. She did the one dramatic, dangerous thing God set before her, and then she did not trade on it. She went home, returned to her ordinary household, refused the many suitors and the status a heroine could have claimed, freed her servant, cared for her relatives, and grew old faithfully in her husband's house. Her greatness, the text says, increased, but it was the greatness of a long, humble, generous life, not the exploitation of a single famous deed. Many people who do one remarkable thing spend the rest of their days living off it; Judith did not. She returned to obscurity and faithfulness, and the peace her courage won lasted through her lifetime and beyond. There is a lesson in that about how to hold a moment of usefulness to God, lightly, without letting it become an identity to be traded on, and then to go on being quietly faithful in ordinary life. The rescue she brought is honored; but so is the long, unremarkable faithfulness that followed it, growing old well, giving her goods away, leaving peace behind her.

If God gives me a moment of real usefulness, will I trade on it and live off it, or will I return, like Judith, to quiet faithfulness, growing old well and leaving peace behind me?

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