Judith 5:1-16: a reflection

1Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Asshur, was told that the children of Israel had prepared for war, had shut up the passages of the hill country, had fortified all the tops of the high hills, and had set up barricades in the plains. 2Then he was exceedingly angry, and he called all the princes of Moab, the captains of Ammon, and all the governors of the sea coast, 3and he said to them, “Tell me now, you sons of Canaan, who are these people who dwell in the hill country? What are the cities that they inhabit? How large is their army? Where is their power and their strength? What king is set over them, to be the leader of their army? 4Why have they turned their backs, that they should not come and meet me, more than all who dwell in the west?” 5Then Achior, the leader of all the children of Ammon, said to him, “Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth concerning these people who dwell in this hill country, near to the place where you dwell. No lie will come out of the mouth of your servant. 6These people are descended from the Chaldeans. 7They sojourned before this in Mesopotamia, because they didn’t want to follow the gods of their fathers, which were in the land of the Chaldeans. 8They departed from the way of their parents, and worshiped the God of heaven, the God whom they knew. Their parents cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia and sojourned there many days. 9Then their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned, and to go into the land of Canaan. They lived there, and prospered with gold and silver, and with exceedingly much cattle. 10Then they went down into Egypt, for a famine covered all the land of Canaan. They sojourned there until they had grown up. They became a great multitude there, so that one could not count the population of their nation. 11Then the king of Egypt rose up against them, and dealt subtly with them, and brought them low, making them labor in brick, and made them slaves. 12They cried to their God, and he struck all the land of Egypt with incurable plagues; so the Egyptians cast them out of their sight. 13God dried up the Red sea before them, 14and brought them into the way of Sinai Kadesh-Barnea and they cast out all that lived in the wilderness. 15They lived in the land of the Amorites, and they destroyed by their strength everyone in Heshbon. Passing over Jordan, they possessed all the hill country. 16They cast out before them the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, the Shechemite, and all the Girgashites, and they lived in that country many days.

Holofernes, a conquering general, wants to know why this small hill-country people dares resist him, and he gets an unexpectedly honest answer from Achior, an Ammonite, a foreigner in his own war council. Achior lays out Israel's history plainly: as long as they did not sin against their God, they prospered, for their God hates iniquity and was with them; but when they turned away, they were defeated and handed over.

Notice two things. First, it is an outsider, a pagan commander, who sees the pattern clearly: this people's real strength was never their numbers or their walls, but their faithfulness to their God. When they kept faith, no one could stand against them; when they abandoned it, no wall could save them. Sometimes an outsider names the truth we would rather not hear.

Second, notice Achior's courage. He tells this to a tyrant who wants to hear that Israel is weak, and he tells the truth anyway, at real risk to himself. It takes nerve to speak the truth to power that wants a different answer. Both threads are worth carrying: that our real strength is fidelity to God, not the things we usually count on, and that telling the truth, even when it is unwelcome and costly, is its own kind of faithfulness.

Lord, remind me that my real strength is faithfulness to you, not the things I usually count on. And give me the courage of Achior, to tell the truth even when it is unwelcome and costly.