Chapter Seven

1–7. Holofernes approaches Bethulia and besieges it. 8–18. Following the advice of the commanders, to avoid unnecessary loss of soldiers, the city is cut off from the springs that sustained it. 19–22. Suffering from thirst. 23–29. The people’s demand to surrender the city. 30–32. Uzziah’s last effort to defend it.

Judith 7:1. On the next day Holofernes commanded all his army and all the people who had come to help him to march against Bethulia, to seize the heights of the highlands, and to begin war against the children of Israel. Judith 7:2. And on that very day all their mighty men arose: their army consisted of one hundred and seventy thousand foot soldiers, and twelve thousand cavalry, apart from the baggage and the foot soldiers who attended them—and these too were a great multitude. 2. The number of troops varies in different manuscripts: sometimes 170,000, sometimes 172,000, sometimes 120,000; the last figure appears also in the parallel passage in the book itself—Jdt 2:15. The same variation in the count appears in the reckoning of cavalry—according to some manuscripts 12,000, according to others even 22,000.

Judith 7:3. They encamped in the valley near Bethulia at the spring, and spread out in breadth from Dothan to Belbaim, and in length from Bethulia to Kiamon, which lies opposite Esdraelon. 3. Besides the already mentioned names we encounter a new locality designation—“Kiamon”—Κυαμώνος. Some scholars understood by this Kiamon the Hebrew word mentioned in 1 Kgs 4:12; others pointed to a place corresponding to the present-day village of Kumieh or Jamon.

Judith 7:4. When the children of Israel saw the multitude of them, they were greatly alarmed, and each said to his neighbor: Now they will devour all the land, and neither the high mountains, nor the valleys, nor the hills will bear their weight. Judith 7:5. Taking each his own weapons of war and lighting fires on their towers, they spent the whole night on guard. Judith 7:6. On the next day Holofernes brought out all his cavalry before the face of the children of Israel in Bethulia, Judith 7:7. examined the approaches to their city, occupied their water springs, took possession of them with armed men, and returned to his people. 7. The “springs of water” mentioned here, which were occupied and taken by Holofernes, apparently did not have significant importance for the inhabitants of Bethulia, who drew water from another source flowing from the foot of their mountains, which soon receives the attention of Holofernes from his companions. This latter spring held both the salvation and the ruin of the fortress, which, being cut off from it, must fall without any loss on the enemy’s side (verses 8–15).

Judith 7:8. But all the rulers of the sons of Esau and all the leaders of the Moabites and all the commanders of the seacoast came to him and said: 8. The “sons of Esau”—the Edomites, who dwelt on the border of Palestine and the Moabites neighboring them—had from ancient times been the most hostile peoples toward the Israelites. In this passage they show themselves as could not be better as true to themselves and invent so treacherous and powerful means to satisfy their racial hatred and revenge against Israel. In verses 17–18 the accomplices in the Edomites’ and Moabites’ treacherous plan are named as also “the sons of Ammon”—the Ammonites, who fully shared the feelings of the first in regard to the Hebrews and undoubtedly deserve to share with them the sad glory of inventing and executing an inhumanly cruel and barbarously treacherous plan.

Judith 7:9. Listen, our master, to a word so that there be no loss in your army. Judith 7:10. These children of Israel trust not in their spears, but in the heights of the mountains on which they dwell, because it is not easy to climb the summits of their mountains. Judith 7:11. Therefore, master, do not fight them as ordinary war is waged—and not a single man of your people will fall. Judith 7:12. You stay in your camp to preserve every man of your army, and let your servants take control of the spring of water that flows from the foot of the mountain; Judith 7:13. because from there all the inhabitants of Bethulia draw water—and thirst will torment them, and they will surrender their city; and we with our people will go up to the nearest summits of the mountains and position ourselves on them to guard, so that not a single man comes out of the city. Judith 7:14. And they will perish from hunger and thirst, and their wives and children and the young ones, and before the sword reaches them they will lie dead in the streets of their dwellings; Judith 7:15. and you will repay them with evil because they rebelled and did not come to meet you in peace. Judith 7:16. These words pleased Holofernes and all his servants, and he resolved to do as they had said. Judith 7:17. And a detachment of the sons of Ammon moved out with five thousand of the Assyrians, and they took up position in the valley and seized the waters and the springs of the children of Israel. Judith 7:18. And the sons of Esau and the sons of Ammon went up and took possession of the highland region opposite Dothan, and sent part of their forces south and east against Ekrebel, which is near Hushan at the Wadi Mochmus; the rest of the Assyrian army was positioned on the plain and covered the entire face of the land: their tents and baggage with the multitude of people stretched out over a very large space. 18. “Ekrebel”—the name of a place, Greek Ἐκρεβήλ, also A κραβήλ—mentioned by Josephus in the “Jewish War” III, 3, 5—Akrabah (Ακραβαττά) by Eusebius and Jerome—Acrabi, lying 3 hours’ journey east of Neapolis on the road to the Jordan and Jericho. The entire monarchy of Akrabitis in the central part of Palestine took its name from this Acrabi. “Hushan”—Greek Χους, otherwise Χουσί, or Ούζ, Vet. Lat. Chus—some read here less successfully χουσεί as Kutei-Samaritans. Closer to the truth are those who explained this reading from Χουρίς, bringing it close to the present-day Dshurish. “Mochmus” (the name of the stream), Greek Μοχμούρ, Vet. Lat. Machur, according to Code. German 15. Pochor—this is probably the present-day Wadi Makhfurijeh.

Judith 7:19. The children of Israel cried out to the Lord their God, because they had come into despondency, for all their enemies surrounded them, and there was no way for them to escape. 19. The hopelessness and disaster of the position of the inhabitants of Bethulia, deprived of water and fainting from one of the most terrible torments—thirst—was brought to the utmost extremity of desperation by the impenetrable blockade of the fortress by Holofernes’ multitudes, who encircled it in a solid iron ring. The slight reserves of water in the cisterns and reservoirs must have been exhausted quickly, despite the most careful saving. It was barely possible to hold out 34 disastrous days of siege; further existence of the fortress was becoming in the highest degree critical. Death of all from mortal thirst or surrender of the city were inevitable. And—as nothing is stronger than the thirst for life, the besieged decided to choose the latter and urgently demanded from the leaders the surrender of the city.

Judith 7:20. Around them stood all the army of Assyria—foot soldiers, chariots and cavalry—for thirty-four days; all the vessels of water of the inhabitants of Bethulia were depleted, Judith 7:21. and the cisterns were emptied, and on no day could they drink water to satisfaction, because it was given to them by measure. Judith 7:22. And their children lost heart and their women and youths, and in their weakness from thirst they fell in the streets of the city and in the passageways of the gates, and there was no strength left in them. Judith 7:23. Then all the people gathered to Uzziah and to the rulers of the city—the youths and women and children—and with a great cry they said to all the elders: Judith 7:24. May God judge between us and you; you have done us great wrong, because you did not propose peace to the sons of Assyria; Judith 7:25. and now we have no helper: God has delivered us into their hands to be destroyed by thirst and great ruin. 25. “God has delivered us into their hands to be destroyed by thirst and great ruin…”—the last clause (dependent) should more naturally be placed not in direct dependence on the main “God has delivered” but on “into their hands,” so that these hands would destroy… etc. The matter of the inhumane destruction of the Israelites by thirst is thus presented as more properly the work of human hands, and only as an act of divine permission.

Judith 7:26. Now invite them and surrender the whole city to plunder by the people of Holofernes and all his army, Judith 7:27. for it is better for us to become their plunder: though we shall be slaves to them, our life will be preserved, and our eyes will not see the death of our infants and our wives and children as they breathe their last. Judith 7:28. We call heaven and earth to witness against you, our God and the Lord of our fathers, who punishes us for our sins and the sins of our fathers, that He may do according to these words on this day. 28. “That He may do [the Lord] according to these words on this day.” The Greek text gives a different expression of this thought—instead of the affirmative “that He may do”—the negative ‘ίνα μή ποιήση (“that He may not do”). The latter seems to correspond better to what follows (verse 27), which foreshadows an especially bitter fate of “the infants, wives and children” of the city in the case of further obstinacy of its leaders in an unequal struggle. The whole thought would thus receive more precisely the following sense: “that He may not do (the Lord) according to these words (otherwise: “according to these fears”) on this day,” that is, “that He may not allow us and our dear infants, wives and children to perish.”

Judith 7:29. And they raised a great lamentation in the assembly together and cried out loudly to the Lord God. Judith 7:30. Uzziah said to them: Take courage, brothers! Let us wait yet five more days, in which the Lord our God will turn his mercy toward us, for He will not completely forsake us. 30. Uzziah’s request not to lose courage and to endure for five more days in the hope of God’s mercy was prompted first of all by the hope that during these five last days it might be possible somehow to move the Lord to pity on the unfortunate, and He might send rain (Jdt 8:31), which would fill the cisterns, and not only prevent the terrible death from thirst, but would also make possible further resistance of the fortress.

Judith 7:31. But if those five days pass and help does not come to us—I will do as you say. 31. From what follows we learn that Uzziah’s promise after five days to surrender the city (in case of disappointment in the last hopes for help) was not a simple promise but a sworn oath (Jdt 8:9). Judith rightly condemns in this an overstepping of the leader’s authority and a great sin against God, to whom, as it were, a challenge was made by such an oath, and an attempt was expressed to limit His unlimited power and subject it to narrow human considerations and conditions.

Judith 7:32. And he dismissed the people to their camps, and they went to the walls and towers of their city, and sent the women and children to their houses; and they remained in the city in great sorrow.