Scripture Daily

Context No. 1158 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 16:1-16: in context

1And Judith began to sing this song of thanksgiving in all Israel, and all the people sang with loud voices this song of praise. 2Judith said, “Begin a song to my God with timbrels. Sing to my Lord with cymbals. Make melody to him with psalm and praise. Exalt him, and call upon his name. 3For the Lord is the God that crushes battles. For in his armies in the midst of the people, he delivered me out of the hand of those who persecuted me. 4Asshur came out of the mountains from the north. He came with ten thousands of his army. Its multitude stopped the torrents. Their horsemen covered the hills. 5He said that he would burn up my borders, kill my young men with the sword, throw my nursing children to the ground, give my infants up as prey, and make my virgins a plunder. 6“The Almighty Lord brought them to nothing by the hand of a woman. 7For their mighty one didn’t fall by young men, neither did sons of the Titans strike him. Tall giants didn’t attack him, but Judith the daughter of Merari made him weak with the beauty of her countenance. 8“For she put off the apparel of her widowhood for the exaltation of those who were distressed in Israel. She anointed her face with ointment, bound her hair in a tiara, and took a linen garment to deceive him. 9Her sandal ravished his eye. Her beauty took his soul prisoner. The sword passed through his neck. 10“The Persians quaked at her daring. The Medes were daunted at her boldness. 11“Then my lowly ones shouted aloud. My oppressed people were terrified and trembled for fear. They lifted up their voices and the enemy fled. 12The children of slave-girls pierced them through, and wounded them as fugitives’ children. They perished by the army of my Lord. 13“I will sing to my God a new song: O Lord, you are great and glorious, marvelous in strength, invincible. 14Let all your creation serve you; for you spoke, and they were made. You sent out your spirit, and it built them. There is no one who can resist your voice. 15For the mountains will be moved from their foundations with the waters, and the rocks will melt as wax at your presence: But you are yet merciful to those who fear you. 16For all sacrifice is little for a sweet savor, and all the fat is very little for a whole burnt offering to you; but he who fears the Lord is great continually.

After the deliverance, Judith leads Israel in a song of thanksgiving. She calls for timbrels and cymbals, and sings of a God who crushes battles and delivered her from her persecutors. The great enemy, Holofernes, who threatened to burn her borders and slaughter her people, was brought to nothing not by strong warriors or giants but by the hand of one woman. She praises God as great and glorious, marvelous in strength, whose word made all creation and whom nothing can resist. And she ends on a striking note: all sacrifice is a small thing for a sweet offering, but whoever fears the Lord is great forever.

Two themes run through Judith's song. First, God's habit of winning through the weak. The enemy commander was not felled by the strong young men, the sons of Titans, the tall giants; he was undone by a widow. God delivered a whole nation by the hand of one unlikely woman, and Judith makes that the centerpiece of her praise: the Almighty brought them to nothing by the hand of a woman. It is the pattern scripture returns to again and again, God choosing the weak to shame the strong, so that the glory is unmistakably his. Second, her closing line reorders what counts as great: all the sacrifices and fat of burnt offerings are a small thing, but the one who fears the Lord is great continually. Even the costliest offering is little; what God prizes is the heart that fears him. Judith, fresh from a famous deed, does not exalt the deed or the deliverance but the fear of the Lord as the truly great and lasting thing. The victory came through weakness, and the greatness that endures is not achievement but reverence.

Do I believe God still wins through the weak and unlikely, and do I count the fear of the Lord, rather than any achievement or offering, as the truly great and lasting thing?

Sources