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Context No. 525 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 6:10-21: in context

10Then Holofernes commanded his servants who waited in his tent to take Achior, and bring him back to Bethulia, and deliver him into the hands of the children of Israel. 11So his servants took him, and brought him out of the camp into the plain, and they moved from the midst of the plains into the hill country, and came to the springs that were under Bethulia. 12When the men of the city saw them on the top of the hill, they took up their weapons, and went out of the city against them to the top of the hill. Every man that used a sling kept them from coming up, and threw stones at them. 13They took cover under the hill, bound Achior, cast him down, left him at the foot of the hill, and went away to their lord. 14But the children of Israel descended from their city, and came to him, untied him, led him away into Bethulia, and presented him to the rulers of their city, 15which were in those days Ozias the son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon, and Chabris the son of Gothoniel, and Charmis the son of Melchiel. 16Then they called together all the elders of the city; and all their young men ran together, with their women, to the assembly. They set Achior in the midst of all their people. Then Ozias asked him what had happened. 17He answered and declared to them the words of the council of Holofernes, and all the words that he had spoken in the midst of the princes of the children of Asshur, and all the great words that Holofernes had spoken against the house of Israel. 18Then the people fell down and worshiped God, and cried, saying, 19“O Lord God of heaven, behold their arrogance, and pity the low estate of our race. Look upon the face of those who are sanctified to you this day.” 20They comforted Achior, and praised him exceedingly. 21Then Ozias took him out of the assembly into his house, and made a feast for the elders. They called on the God of Israel for help all that night.

To understand this scene you need to know who Achior is. He is not an Israelite; he is an Ammonite commander in the army of Holofernes, the general besieging God's people. But when Holofernes' war council was deciding how to crush Israel, Achior, an outsider, told the tyrant the truth: that this people could not be defeated as long as they were faithful to their God. For that honest word, Holofernes had him bound and dumped at the foot of the besieged city of Bethulia, cast out of the camp, to share the fate of the Israelites he had defended. And here is what God's people do with this rejected foreigner. They come down, untie him, bring him into the city, and set him before the whole assembly.

Watch how they treat him. They do not eye the enemy soldier with suspicion or turn away the outsider. They listen to his testimony about Holofernes' arrogance, and it drives them to their knees in worship and prayer. Then they comfort Achior, they praise him warmly, and one of the leaders takes him into his own house and makes a feast for him. A foreigner, a man from the enemy's army, who had been discarded by those in power for telling an inconvenient truth, is welcomed, sheltered, honored, and fed by the people of God. They receive the very person the world had thrown away.

That asks a pointed question about who I welcome. It is easy to keep the outsider at a distance, especially one who comes from the wrong side, and easy to have no room for the person who has been discarded by the strong for saying something true. Bethulia took such a man in, untied him, comforted him, and sat him at the table. Is there someone the world has cast out, an outsider, someone who paid a price for honesty, whom I am keeping at arm's length, and what would it look like to receive them the way these people received Achior?

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