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Context No. 731 of 4322 · Judith

Context · Reflection

Judith 6:1-9: in context

1And when the disturbance of the men that were around the council had ceased, Holofernes the chief captain of the army of Asshur said to Achior and to all the children of Moab before all the people of the foreigners: 2“And who are you, Achior, and the mercenaries of Ephraim, that you have prophesied among us as today, and have said that we should not make war with the race of Israel, because their God will defend them? And who is God but Nebuchadnezzar? 3He will send forth his might, and will destroy them from the face of the earth, and their God will not deliver them; but we his servants will strike them as one man. They will not sustain the might of our cavalry. 4For with them we will burn them up. Their mountains will be drunken with their blood. Their plains will be filled with their dead bodies. Their footsteps will not stand before us, but they will surely perish, says King Nebuchadnezzar, lord of all the earth; for he said, ‘The words that I have spoken will not be in vain.’ 5But you, Achior, hireling of Ammon, who have spoken these words in the day of your iniquity, will see my face no more from this day, until I am avenged of the race of those that came out of Egypt. 6And then the sword of my army, and the multitude of those who serve me, will pass through your sides, and you will fall among their slain when I return. 7Then my servants will bring you back into the hill country, and will set you in one of the cities by the passes. 8You will not perish until you are destroyed with them. 9And if you hope in your heart that they will not be taken, don’t let your countenance fall. I have spoken it, and none of my words will fall to the ground.”

The book of Judith sets up its drama with a confrontation in the enemy camp. Holofernes, the general leading Nebuchadnezzar's vast army west, has just heard a warning he did not want. Achior, an Ammonite, has told him the plain truth: do not attack Israel, because their God defends them, and no one can beat them unless they have first sinned against him. Holofernes explodes. Who are you, Achior, to prophesy to us? he says. And then the line that reveals the whole empire's creed: who is God but Nebuchadnezzar? There is no god above the king; the king's word will not fall to the ground.

He decides Achior can share the fate of the people he defended. He has him bound and thrown out toward the Israelite town of Bethulia, telling him he will die with them when the army comes. It is meant as a curse, and it becomes the man's rescue. Cast out to perish with Israel, Achior instead ends up inside the walls to watch Israel's God do exactly what he had said, and by the end of the book he has joined them. The tyrant who made himself the only god handed his truth-teller over to the very people who would save him.

Holofernes could see no god above the king, and threw away the man who told him the truth. What human power have I quietly treated as the last word, as if there were no God above it?

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