Scripture Daily

Context No. 2591 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 3:1-5: in context

1And they sent to him messengers with words of peace, saying, 2“Behold, we the servants of Nebuchadnezzar the great king lie before you. Use us as it is pleasing in your sight. 3Behold, our dwellings, and all our country, and all our fields of wheat, and our flocks and herds, and all the sheepfolds of our tents, lie before your face. Use them as it may please you. 4Behold, even our cities and those who dwell in them are your servants. Come and deal with them as it is good in your eyes.” 5So the men came to Holofernes, and declared to him according to these words.

As the army of Holofernes advances, the terrified nations send messengers of surrender. We are the servants of the great king, they say; before you lie our land, our fields, our flocks, our cities and the people in them. Use them as it pleases you; deal with us as it is good in your eyes. It is total, abject capitulation, everything they have laid at the feet of a conqueror out of fear.

The scene is a picture of surrender given to the wrong lord. Fear drives these nations to hand over everything, their goods, their homes, their very selves, to a human tyrant, saying in effect, do with us whatever you want. And that total abandon, that laying of all one is and has before another, is exactly what belongs to God and to no one else. We are made to surrender completely, but to the Lord who made and loves us, not to the fears and powers that bully us into it. When I lay my whole self at the feet of some threat, some idol, some tyranny of circumstance, I am giving to a Holofernes the abandon that God alone deserves.

To what fear or power am I surrendering everything, laying my whole self at its feet, when that total surrender belongs to God alone?

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