Chapter Nine

1–14. Judith’s prayer.

Judith 9:1. And Judith fell on her face, cast ashes upon her head, and removed the sackcloth in which she was clothed; and at the very hour when the evening incense was being offered in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, Judith cried out to the Lord with a loud voice and said: 1. “Sackcloth”—σάκκος—rough mourning garment, which Judith wore over her garments of widowhood. These two garments are mentioned separately later: Jdt 10:3 verse. According to Jdt 8:5 Judith’s sackcloth was on her loins, and therefore under her garments of widowhood. “The evening incense”—in contrast to the “morning” incense. Incense was burned twice—morning and evening (Exod 10:7-8). In preparing for prayer, Judith removes her sackcloth, showing that her personal sorrow for her husband is now eclipsed by sorrow for Israel, and that she completely devotes her entire soul to this sorrow and the desire to help it, even at the risk of her own life.

Judith 9:2. “Lord God of my father Simeon, to whom You gave a sword for vengeance against the foreigners, who uncovered the bosom of a virgin for defilement, bared the thigh for shame, and defiled the womb for dishonor! You said: It shall not be done, and they did it. Judith 9:3. “Therefore You delivered their rulers to slaughter, and their bed, which was defiled by deceit, to blood, and struck the slaves beside their masters, and the masters upon their thrones, Judith 9:4. “and gave their wives to plunder, their daughters to captivity, and all their spoils to division among Your beloved sons, who were zealous for Your zeal, and loathed the defilement of their blood, and called upon You for help. O God, my God, hear me, a widow! Judith 9:5. “You made what happened before this, and this and what comes after, and You foreknew the present and the future, and the thoughts came to You, and what You intended was accomplished; Judith 9:6. “for what You have determined came to be, and the things You foresaw said: Here I am. For all Your ways are ready, and Your judgment is foreknown to You. Judith 9:7. “Behold, the Assyrians boast in their strength, take pride in horse and rider, are arrogant in the power of their infantry, trust in shield and spear and bow and sling, but do not know that You are the Lord who crushes wars. Judith 9:8. “Lord is Your name; break their strength by Your power, and shatter their force in Your anger, for they have devised to desecrate Your sanctuary, to defile the dwelling place of Your glorious name, and to strike down the horn of Your altar with iron. Judith 9:9. “Look upon their arrogance, send Your wrath upon their heads, and give the strength of the widow’s hand to accomplish what I have devised. Judith 9:10. “Strike the slave by the hand of a woman, and the commander by the cunning of my lips, and shatter their pride through a woman’s hand; 10. “Strike the slave before (Gr. επί) the commander, and the commander before his slave...” This expression is a direct parallel to the thought of verse 3, where to the Greek επί a different, more precise sense is given: “You struck the slaves beside the masters (i.e., together and simultaneously with the masters) and the masters upon their thrones.”

Judith 9:11. “for not in the multitude is Your strength, nor in the mighty is Your power; but You are God of the humble, You are the helper of the oppressed, the upholder of the weak, the protector of those cast down, the savior of the hopeless. Judith 9:12. “Yes, yes, God of my fathers and God of the inheritance of Israel, Master of heaven and earth, Creator of the waters, King of all Your creation! Hear my prayer, 12. “Master of heaven and earth, Creator of the waters...” Heaven, earth, and water are presented here as encompassing the totality of all things; this is generalized further: “King of all Your creation...”

Judith 9:13. “and make my word and my cunning a wound and a blow to those who have devised cruelty against Your covenant, Your holy house, the height of Zion, and the house of the inheritance of Your children. 13. “The house of the inheritance of Your children”—a collective designation of all the houses of Israel received not by ordinary inheritance alone from ancestors, but by inheritance from the Lord Himself, which was given upon their deliverance from Egypt. Having decided to employ cunning, deception, and guile against the enemy, Judith calls upon the Lord for help, as if for a deed unworthy and improper, and even hopes to show in this deed the special glory and greatness of the God of Israel. Is this not too bold and unworthy of the Lord God? Some interpreters say that since Sacred Scripture praises Judith’s heroism, the means by which she destroyed Holofernes (deception) is excused by the motives that animated her conduct, her good-hearted faith. Such an explanation, however, is rather unsatisfying, and no better than the Jesuit principle: “the end justifies the means.” The explanation of Thomas Aquinas is more careful. He remarks that “Scripture praises Judith not for her lie, but for the devotion which she had toward her people, for whom she exposed herself to danger.” However, if Scripture does not condemn Judith for her cunning and even allows her to pray so convincingly and boldly to the Lord to use this cunning for the glory of His Name, it is evident that this cunning of hers is not quite like the common notion of lies and should be treated from the point of view of other dimensions. Judith’s cunning would be disreputable if all success depended only on it, were exhausted by it, and had significance only as her clever display. Upon deeper reflection into the matter, we must feel that the main factor in all this history is not Judith, not her cunning, boldness, etc., but—the Lord with His Justice and all-powerful Wisdom. He, apart from Judith, determined Holofernes’ fate and could, without her aid, resolve it in any other way. Yet He employs feminine cunning for the greater shame of the enemy, exalted in his boasts beyond proper limits, not to glorify cunning, not to encourage it, but to crush human pride—by human weakness and artifice itself. This, of course, casts no shadow on that Most Pure Essence, which employed human cunning here not to hide Its weakness, as people use cunning, but precisely to display and glorify Its power, which destroys the arrogant presumption of man by his own fragile weapon.

Judith 9:14. “Give understanding to all Your people and every tribe, that they may see that You are God, the God of all strength and power, and that there is no other protector of the race of Israel but You alone. 2–14. Judith’s prayer pours forth from the memory of the famous deed in the history of her ancestors—Simeon (Gen 34:30), who together with another son of Jacob—his brother Levi—savagely avenged the outrage done to his sister (Dinah) by Shechem and all the inhabitants of his city. Having recalled this event with noble pride and a confession of God’s righteous all-powerfulness (verses 1–6), Judith turns to the present calamitous condition of her people, sets forth the arrogant and daring threats and intentions of the Assyrians against the sanctuary and people of God, sees in these threats and intentions, quite correctly and wisely, as it were a new, similar to Shechem’s, attempt on the honor and integrity of God’s treasure (verses 7–8), and, just as in the deed of that famous ancestor of hers cunning was used as an instrument of vengeance for lawless daring, so now in that same cunning she sees the most fitting means to crush the daring of the enemy and prays to God that by just such a worthy path He would help her glorify His Name and the Power of His Justice against those who dared to assail His sanctuaries (verses 9–14). It is curious that the significance of the deed of Judith’s famous ancestor—Simeon, so praised by Judith, appears in Genesis 34 and 49 and following in a completely different light. According to the text of Genesis, Jacob was deeply disturbed by Simeon’s action. And this was not merely from fear of the consequences of such a harsh reprisal; if only fear of revenge for the slaying of Shechem had guided Jacob in his disapproval of Simeon’s deed, he would certainly not have recalled it with the same sharp censure many years later, when all danger had passed (in the second of the indicated biblical passages). Evidently, Jacob was also principally opposed to Simeon’s deed, in which he saw excessive cruelty, narrow self-interest, and needless inhumanity, especially given Shechem’s sincere repentance. Judith’s representation presents the matter of Simeon in a completely different light. For her, this deed appears first and foremost as one of the most glorious deeds of the Lord, defender of the innocent and punisher of arrogant oppressors of innocence. Simeon was in this case a mere instrument of God’s righteous wrath and carried out this calling apart from any personal interests and narrow considerations. His deed—was not his alone, but of all those zealous for the Name of God and His glory, which is why thereafter the name of Simeon merges with all the sons beloved by God, whose representatives in this deed were Simeon and Levi. The question now arises: which of these two representations of Simeon’s deed should we accept as more true and acceptable? It seems to us that neither one excludes the other, and both should retain their force, mutually supplementing and correcting each other. In our life it is very common for events and phenomena that appear to be entirely ordinary and revolving in the sphere of the life of one known person to reflect universal, broad, and deep significance for all times and all peoples. To the number of such events belongs the matter of Simeon, which in its full significance and all-sided light appeared only at a later time. The deed of the “foreigners,” which provoked such severe and deserved vengeance from Simeon, appears as a criminal violation of a clearly expressed prohibition of God: “You said: It shall not be done, and they did it” (verse 2). In the report of this deed in the above-mentioned passage of Genesis (Gen 34:7) these words correspond to something like: “but it should not be done so.” Perhaps both expressions represent a free paraphrase of a known original prohibition of God, set forth in Deut 23:17: “there shall be no harlot among the daughters of Israel...” Moses, as the author not only of Deuteronomy but also of Genesis, certainly allows one to understand this prohibition also in the obscurely expressed thought of the said passage of Genesis. Some interpreters, however, justly suppose that Moses employed this obscure expression of thought on purpose and shows his strict adaptation to the views and condition of the time being narrated. That time perhaps did not yet have a clear and direct judgment of God on the indicated question, but was guided only by custom and establishing moral conceptions at that time. Nevertheless, these customs and conceptions, many of which later received Divine sanction at Sinai, had sacred significance for the children of Jacob, because they were based on the fundamental requirements of natural moral feeling, belonged to the realm of those moral principles by which, according to the Apostle, “the gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires” (Rom 2:14), and all the more should have been embraced by the sensitive souls of the children of Israel, in view of their Divine election. It is not surprising therefore that it was so close to their hearts, the unfortunate incident with Dinah and moved them to such a terrible deed of vengeance. The immediate continuation of the address “Lord God of my father Simeon” (verse 2) is in verse 9 the prayer: “give the strength of the widow’s hand to accomplish what I have devised.” In this is thought all wherein Divine help should be expressed. Judith expresses this general content of her prayer more specifically: “break their strength... and shatter their force” (verse 8); “look upon their arrogance, send Your wrath” (verse 9); “strike the slave... shatter their pride” (verse 10); “make my word and my cunning a wound and a blow to those who have devised cruelty...” (verse 13); “give understanding to all Your people and every tribe” (verse 14). From certain hints in the prayer itself (and earlier, see Jdt 8:32-34) one can establish that Judith already had a complete and ready plan and method of action. As a worthy daughter of Simeon, she chose the sword for vengeance against those who dishonored Israel, and as the means for the successful achievement of her goal she decided to employ cunning: she decided, to a certain degree, to become a new “Dinah,” to allow herself to be drawn even to the bed of the enemy and, remaining alone with him, to present him instead of the expected caresses with a mortal blow of the sword. Dazzling beauty, enhanced by magnificent garments with adornments and outstanding understanding of Judith, would allow one to hope for a good half of the success of the devised deed; the rest—or rather: everything—this wonderful woman hoped to accomplish only with Divine help and the power of her strong faith in the Savior of the hopeless and Protector of the oppressed. How little she attributed significance to herself in this is evident from the fact that by her weakness she even further emphasized the greatness of the Divine deed to be accomplished through her: “shatter their pride through a woman’s hand!” (Verse 10 and following).