Scripture Daily

Context No. 271 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 3:6-10: in context

6He came down toward the sea coast, he and his army, and set garrisons in the high cities, and took out of them chosen men for allies. 7They received him, they and all the country round about them, with garlands and dances and timbrels. 8He cast down all their borders, and cut down their sacred groves. It had been given to him to destroy all the gods of the land, that all the nations would worship Nebuchadnezzar only, and that all their tongues and their tribes would call upon him as a god. 9Then he came toward Esdraelon near to Dotaea, which is opposite the great ridge of Judea. 10He encamped between Geba and Scythopolis. He was there a whole month, that he might gather together all the baggage of his army.

In the book of Judith, the emperor Nebuchadnezzar has sent his general Holofernes to bring the western nations to heel, and this passage shows the conquest rolling forward before it reaches Israel. One town and region after another surrenders, and the writer notes how they surrender: they come out to meet the invading army with garlands and dances and tambourines. They celebrate the arrival of the force that has come to own them.

But the aim of the campaign is stated in a single loaded sentence, and it is not really about land. Holofernes tears down the peoples' borders and cuts down their sacred groves, the text says, because he had been given the task of destroying all the local gods, so that every nation would worship Nebuchadnezzar alone and call on him as a god. The empire does not want obedience only. It wants worship. It intends to be the one god, the sole object of every allegiance, and it clears away the local shrines precisely so that nothing else can be called holy. This is power that will not settle for your compliance and reaches for the place inside you that belongs to God.

The unsettling part is how the conquered greet it, dancing, garlanding the very thing that has come to erase every other loyalty. What have I welcomed into my life with something like dances, that is not content to be one thing among many, but quietly means to be the only thing I call god?

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