Scripture Daily

Context No. 1716 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 2:1-13: in context

1In the eighteenth year, the twenty-second day of the first month, there was talk in the house of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians that he should be avenged on all the land, even as he spoke. 2He called together all his servants and all his great men, and communicated with them his secret counsel, and with his own mouth, recounted the wickedness of all the land. 3They decreed to destroy all flesh which didn’t follow the word of his mouth. 4It came to pass, when he had ended his counsel, Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians called Holofernes the chief captain of his army, who was second to himself, and said to him, 5“The great king, the lord of all the earth, says: ‘Behold, you shall go out from my presence, and take with you men who trust in their strength, to one hundred twenty thousand footmen and twelve thousand horses with their riders. 6And you shall go out against all the west country, because they disobeyed the commandment of my mouth. 7You shall declare to them that they should prepare earth and water, because I will go out in my wrath against them, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my army, who will plunder them. 8Their slain will fill their valleys and brooks, and the river will be filled with their dead until it overflows. 9I will lead them as captives to the utmost parts of all the earth. 10But you shall go forth, and take all their coasts for me first. If they will yield themselves to you, then you must reserve them for me until the day of their reproof. 11As for those who resist, your eye shall not spare; but you shall give them up to be slain and to be plundered in all your land. 12For as I live, and by the power of my kingdom, I have spoken, and I will do this with my hand. 13Moreover, you shall not transgress anything of the commandments of your lord, but you shall surely accomplish them, as I have commanded you. You shall not defer to do them.’”

The book of Judith opens with the rage of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians, resolved to take vengeance on all the lands that would not submit to him. He summons Holofernes, his chief captain, and dispatches him with a vast army to devastate the west. Declare to them, he says, that they must prepare earth and water, tokens of surrender, for I will go out in my wrath and cover the whole earth with my army. Spare none who resist. As I live, and by the power of my kingdom, I have spoken, and I will do it with my own hand.

Nebuchadnezzar speaks like a god. As I live, he swears, lord of all the earth; he demands total submission, the earth and water of surrender, from every people; he claims to do it all with his own hand, as though his will were the highest power in the world. It is the voice of human pride swollen to its full pitch, the tyrant who has forgotten that he is a creature and set himself up in the place of God, ruler of all the earth, answerable to no one, whose word is final. And the whole book of Judith is the story of how this pretension is brought down, not by a great army, but through an unlikely woman in God's hand. There is a pattern here as old as Babel and as current as today: the human power that swells until it plays god, demanding the submission that belongs to God alone, claiming to hold the earth in its own hand. Such pride always overreaches, and always, in time, is brought low; for there is a God above the loftiest earthly power, and he is not mocked by the tyrant's boast. The one who says as I live, as though his life and word were ultimate, forgets that his breath is in the hand of the God who gave it. This should sober the proud and comfort the oppressed. To the proud, it is a warning that the pretension to godlike power invites its own downfall. To those crushed under such power, it is the assurance that the tyrant who plays god is not god, that a higher hand holds the earth, and that the arrogance which demands the submission owed to God alone will, like Nebuchadnezzar's, be humbled.

Where do I see human power swelling until it plays god, demanding what belongs to God alone, and am I tempted in my own small way to the same pride, or can I remember that there is a God above the loftiest earthly power, who humbles the arrogance that claims to hold the earth in its own hand?

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