CHAPTER 9
After vowing to take care of the Assyrians at the end of
last chapter, Judith (the character and the book) holds us in suspense. Unlike the Book of Tobit, where we are told
midway through how it’ll all play out, this one just lets the story unfold).
Judith begins by praying to God. A few interesting features of her prayer. First, there is a theological justification
for predestination, as she tells God, “The present and the future you have also
planned. Whatever you devise comes into
being. The things you decide come
forward and say, `Here we are!’ All
your ways are in readiness, and your judgment is made with foreknowledge.” You could even call it a Biblical expression
of predestination – except that Calvinists don’t include Judith in their Bible
and they are the predestination people.
Go figure.
God is also praised as, “You are God of the lowly, helper of
those of little account, supporter of the weak, protector of those in despair,
savior of those without hope.” That’s a
nice image of God.
CHAPTER 10
With her prayer done, Judith readies herself for the steps
she’ll need to take to save her city.
(By the way, I haven’t mentioned it, but the city in question is
Bethulia. No, I never heard of it,
either). First, she pretties herself
up. We’ve been told before that she’s
really beautiful, but now she takes off her mourning clothes and puts on “the
festive attire she had worn while her husband, Manasseh, was living.” She puts on sandals, rings, anklets,
bracelets, earrings, and all manner of ancient Hebrew bling. So for the next while, every time a new male
character sees her, his tongue is going to be hanging out and the blood will be
rushing away from his brain.
The second part of the chapter is titled, “Judith Goes Out
to War.” There is no Rambo action,
though. She goes to the Assyrian camp,
where the soldiers drool over her, but send her to their commander when she
requests it. (They say had she not done
so, she would’ve lost her life. I don’t
want to know what they were planning on doing – raping to death? They sound awful horny here). When she sees the top general, a crowd
gathers in the camp to leer.
The soldiers confer with each other and come to an
agreement. Man, they must kill every
Israeli out there, because if they can make women that look like this, “they
could beguile the whole earth.” Hey, I
told you that all the male characters will be drooling for a while. It’s laid on a bit thick, don’t you think?
CHAPTER 11
The top Assyrian general’s name is Holofernes. And while he’s been ruthless in battle, he
comes off fairly decently here when he interviews Judith. He says he doesn’t get these Hebrew. Why couldn’t they have seen how the wind was
blowing and surrendered, then they’d be fine.
But since they didn’t, it’s his job to slaughter them. OK, that doesn’t sound so nice when I think
about it. But he’s a guy with a job to
do. Any massacres he’s doing isn’t
personal; it’s just business. And if he
can avoid the massacres, he’s down with it.
He’s the bad guy in the story, but that doesn’t mean the guy is bad.
Judith’s speech to him is a nice bit of wordplay full of
double meanings. She says, “I will say
nothing false to my lord this night.”
To Holofernes, lord means something feudal, that she’s his vassal and
he’s her lord. But of course she really
means lord as in Lord. The rest of the
speech goes on like that, as she notes the God will perform his deeds through
Holofernes, and the Lord won’t fail.
OK, this is cleverly done.
Judith says it’s true that the Jews only lose if God is
unhappy with them, but she says God just happens to be unhappy with them, for
they’ve done plenty of idol worshipping.
(Actually, she said the opposite in Chapter 8 when we first met here,
but never mind; she doesn’t have to be fully truthful to this guy). Thus she says, “God has sent me to perform
with you such deeds as will astonish people throughout the whole earth who hear
them.” See? More double meanings here.
Actually, aside from the double meanings, she sounds a
little like the prophet Jeremiah here.
She says the Jewish people deserve to be defeated because they’ve
strayed from God. Thus Assyria will be
God’s instrument of punishment upon them.
That’s largely what Jeremiah said, too, but about a different people
(the Babylonians). There is a key
difference though: Jeremiah meant it, whereas Judith is telling Holofernes a
line).
He doesn’t drool over her like many others have, but does
compliment her at the end for being beautiful, wise, and eloquent. Given how
well that speech was, I have to agree on the wisdom and eloquence. She nailed that meeting. I’ll take his word for it on the beauty
front, as everyone seems to agree about that.
CHAPTER 12
The general invites Judith to eat with them, but she
declines. It ain’t kosher, and she
brought her own food. But what happens
if you run out of that food? It’s OK,
she says, the Lord’s work will be done in that time.
While she is very good at these double meaning statements,
at a certain point in time, shouldn’t Holofernes catch on? It’s one thing if she gives out one of these
statements, but after enough he should at least be wondering what her agenda
is. The more times she says a
double-edged statement, the dumber he comes off for not catching on.
After four days, Holofernes decides it’s time to insist she
eat with him. He tells his servants,
“It would bring shame on us to be with such a woman without enjoying her.” OK, I take back what I said last chapter
about him not being that bad of a guy.
Seriously – “without enjoying her”?
Stay classy. He then adds, “If
we do not seduce here, she will laugh at us.”
Oh. Also – what’s with the
plural here? When the time comes, he
wants her just for himself.
And the time comes.
Judith practically leaps at the offer, saying, “This will be a joy for
me until the day of my death.” It’s
another double meaning, but again Holofernes doesn’t notice. By now, he – like everyone else in the
Assyrian army – is just thinking with his dick. The Bible makes that plainly clear, saying that, “His passion was
aroused. He was burning with the desire
to possess her.” His earlier nice
treatment was just him biding his time.
At dinner, she repeats, “for today is the greatest day of my life.” Then she gets him drunk. Actually, the Bible doesn’t say that she did
it – it’s just that he downs a ton of booze, “more than he had ever drunk on
any day since he was born.” OK,
why? That’s just really dumb. I mean, even aside from the fact he could
now easily be beheaded by Judith – SPOILER! – this would make it more likely
he’d pass out and not get laid. The
more we read of Holofernes, the dumber he gets.
CHAPTER 13
And sure enough he does pass out. And
there Judith is, all alone with him, her servant, and his sword. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out
what happens next. Yup, she cuts his
head off. It takes two strokes with all
her might. My, that must leave quite
the blood splattering.
Well, the Bible writers apparently don’t think in terms of
blood splatter, because Judith and her servant then are able to leave the tent
and camp with no problem. Really? C’mon.
The general’s tent should’ve been in the middle of the camp. Shouldn’t there have been some guard or
something somewhere to get between her and the Israeli town? I guess not, because in one sentence she comes
from tent to town. Man, what lousy
security.
They come back and – wait, quick pause. We’ve never gotten the servant’s name. That’s a shame, as she’s along for this
entire part of the story. It’s a
longstanding tradition going back to Genesis when Abraham sent his servant to
arrange Isaac’s marriage, and even though it was one of the longest chapters in
Genesis, we never got the servant’s name.
Anyhow, Judith and Judith’s Nameless Servant tell everyone
what happened – and even show off Holofernes’ head for good measure. Man, Judith must have blood all over the
place by now. She says she seduced him,
but he didn’t defile her.
CHAPTER 14
Now Judith tells everyone her master plan. Have the guys rush out of the gate, but
don’t attack the Assyrians. Instead,
the Assyrians will see the Jewish army, and get Holofernes. When they see his headless corpse, they’ll
freak out, fall into confusion, and be ripe for the plucking. I must say, that sounds like a dumb
plan. Oh, I’m sure they’ll be upset to
see the general, but they really shouldn’t fall completely to pieces at just
one death; even the death of their general.
Wouldn’t they have assistant generals and a second tier of leaders?
But of course the plan works perfectly. They fall apart absurdly easily. When they see the corpse, they cry loudly,
weep, groan, howl, and tear their garments.
As the word spreads, more and more do it.
Really? Look, I get
that losing the top leader is the worst loss of all. An army can lose heart, but this is comically overdone. It’s like they haven’t seen a dead body
before. I can see maybe confusion among
the leaders, and secondary officials vying for command now that the general is
dead. I can see that leading to
internal dissention and an inability to work together. But it shouldn’t be this. It shouldn’t be a complete clownshoes moment
for the entire army. In a Bible book
full of cardboard thin plot points and characters, this part really takes the
cake. The Book of Judith really needs
Vince Gilligan and the writing staff from Breaking Bad to help things out.
CHAPTER 15
Well, the Assyrian hissy fit continues and spreads to all
their camp. We’re told that, “Overcome
with fear and dread, no one kept ranks any longer. They scattered in all directions, and fled along every
path.” This sounds like a bad B-movie
sci fi flick from the 1950s. Where the
monster appears and people scatter all over the place. But those are at least civilians going about
their daily life. This is the crack
army of one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. And it’s not a monster that set them off, it
was the sight of one dead body.
Yeah, this is really stupid.
But then the Israelis strike – just as Judith told them to –
and naturally win easily. Other Jewish
towns get involved. It’s a
mauling. There is so much booty that
they loot for 30 days. Dang, that’s a
lot of plunder.
And Judith is celebrated.
I got to figure that if she was real and led Israel to such a huge win,
she’d be a ton better known. This is
clearly a work of fiction; and not an especially good one.
CHAPTER 16
Is mostly a song for Judith. It says that Judith sings it, but I doubt that, because so much
of it praises her. (She hasn’t come off
like an egomaniac at all). Mostly,
though, it praises God. It’s standard
stuff.
Judith has been given lots of stuff – all the prize items
from Holofernes tent – but she gives it all to God. That’s nice.
Then she gets old and her fame is huge. Many want to marry her, but she doesn’t;
staying true to her late husband. She
dies at age 105, because all great people in the Bible must live long
lives. We’re told that no one else
threatened the Jews as long as she lived.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
I can see why the Protestants and Jews leave this book
out. First, it’s clearly fiction. If it was real, boy oh boy would it be much
better known, first among the ancient Hebrew themselves.
The plot is thin.
The characters are thin. And the
climax is laughable: a great army falls to pieces so insanely easily. Something similar happens in Samuel I, where
Jonathan kills 20 Philistines and it causes their army to fall apart. It was stupid then and still stupid now. It’s just entirely unbelievable. I found myself reading over it by the end to
try to get on with it.
Click here to begin the next book: Esther.
Click here to begin the next book: Esther.
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