HOME PAGE – THE PLAY-TEXT –
CAST LIST – PRESS
REVIEW – THE
JEW OF MALTA –TWO
SONGS
JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES –
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
DEPORTATIONS – THE JERUSALEM OF THE
BALKANS
LES JUIFS DE SALONIQUE…
JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES
[This is a powerful account of Jewish
resistance to the oppressor. The full version can be found in the Apocrypha, the "unoffical"
books of the Old Testament]
Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Assyrians was at
war with King Arphaxad, king of the Medes, who ruled in
Nebuchadnezzar sent word round to all the
nations that they should help him in this war. But those nations ignored his
requests.
Nebuchadnezzar defeated Arphaxad in war, and he
destroyed the fine city of
Now Nebuchadnezzar was very, very angry. He
called to him Holofernes, the general who was his second-in-command. He told
Holofernes to go out to all the nations and demand their submission to him. If
they did not submit to the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, they were to be destroyed.
"I shall go forth in my anger against
them, and I shall cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my armies,
and I shall set my armies loose on them. And their dead shall fill their
valleys and brooks, and the river shall be filled with their dead until it
overflow, and I shall lead them captive to the utmost parts of the earth."
So Holofernes went out, with a huge army of
men, and ravaged the entire area, right down to the Mediterranean coast. He
sowed destruction in
Many of the people bowed down before Holofernes
and surrendered and allowed him to destroy their temples and their cities. They
were forced to worship Nebuchadnezzar as the only God, that all their tongues
and their tribes should call upon him as God.
And Holophernes came towards
And the children of
The children of
And the Israelites prayed to their God, and
made vows, and offered burnt offerings.
And Holofernes was furious to hear that they
had taken the hill country and blocked the pass. He determined to attack the
Israelites.
Holofernes was warned by a man called Achior
not to make war on the Israelites, because they had come back into the paths of
righteousness, and their God would defend them. But the followers of Holofernes
said that there was no God but Nebuchadnezzar, and they
"We will not be afraid of the children of
So Holofernes and his army set out, and marched
to the foothills of the hill country where the Israelites kept guard over the
passes.
"And the host of their men of war was a
hundred and seventy thousand footmen, and twelve thousand horsemen, as well as
the baggage and the men that were afoot among them, an exceeding great
multitude."
Some of the local peoples came to Holofernes,
and they told him: Do not try to fight the Israelites, because they have well
defended positions. Instead, you should starve them out. Block their supplies
of water. They will soon die of thirst and hunger.
So Holofernes set his armed men on all the
springs, so that the Israelites could have no water. And he sent armies round
to the back of the Israelite position, so that they could have no way of
escape.
And after one month – after thirty four days –
all the supplies of water ran out.
"All the cisterns were emptied, and they
had not water to drink their fill for one day, for they gave them drink by
measure. And their young children were out of heart, and the women and young
men fainted from thirst, and they fell down in the streets of the city, and
there was no longer any strength in them."
And the Israelites were reduced to such a
condition that they wanted to surrender to Holofernes, because they said that
it would be better to go into slavery, rather than see their children dying of
thirst and hunger. Their leaders listened to them. Their leaders said that they
would hold on for five more days, to see if their God was with them. And if
their God was not with them, they would surrender to the Assyrians.
Now, there was a woman, called Judith, which
means Jewess, and she had been a widow for the past three years, because her
husband had died of sunstroke during the harvest time.
She was a beautiful woman, and since the death
of her husband she had lived in mourning and the garments of widowhood,
respecting the ways of her religion.
When she heard that the elders of the city had
made this promise, to surrender in five days, she called the elders to her house.
She told them that they were wrong to take God's name in vain. "You can't
go making promises to push our God into doing this or that," she said.
"For God is not as man, that he should be threatened; neither as the son
of man, that he should be turned by entreaty".
She explained that God had his ways, and the
Israelites should accept whatever God decided for them.
At this point the elders agreed that she was
right. But they asked her help:
"Now, we ask you to pray for us. Because
you are a godly woman. And the Lord shall send us rain to fill our water
cisterns. And we shall faint no more."
And Judith replied with mysterious words. She said:
"Listen to me. I am going to do a thing
which shall echo down through all the generations of our children to come. You
must open the city gates tonight, and I shall go out with my maidservant. And
within the five days in which you said you would surrender, the Lord will do
what must be done for the Israelites, by my hand. But you must not ask what I
am going to do, because I shall not tell you until I have finished what I have
to do."
And the elders agreed to do as she said.
Then Judith went and put ashes upon her head
and uncovered the sackcloth in which she was clothed, and she prayed to her
God. She asked him to hear her words, widow that she was.
The Assyrians, she said, are multiplied in
their power. They are exalted with horse and rider. They have gloried in the
strength of their footmen. They have trusted in shield and spear and bow and sling.
But they do not know that it is God that decides the force of battles.
"Look down upon their pride," she
said. "And send thy wrath upon their heads. Give into my hands, who am a
widow, the power for which I am asking. Smite by the deceit of my lips the
servant with the prince, and the prince with his servant. Break down their
stateliness by the hand of a woman."
"Break down their stateliness by the hand
of a woman."
And Judith called her maid to her, and went
into her house, and took off the sackcloth that she had put on. And her widow's
clothes. And she washed her body all over with water. And anointed herself with
rich ointment. And braided the hair of her head, and put an ornament in it. And
she put on her garments of gladness which she used to wear when her husband was
alive. And she took sandals for her feet, and put her chains about her, and her
bracelets, and her rings, and her earrings, and all her ornaments, and she
decked herself bravely, to beguile the eyes of all men that should see her.
And she gave her maid a leather bottle of wine
and a cruse of oil, and filled a bag with corn and lumps of figs and fine
bread, and having prepared all this, she and her maid went forth out of the
city.
And they went to the gates of the city, and the
elders were there waiting for them. And the elders were amazed by her beauty.
And they wished her good fortune in whatever she was about to do.
She commanded the young men to open the gates,
which they did, and she and her maid passed through the gates, and down into
the valley, and out of sight of the city, and they went straight on through the
valley until they came to the armed guards of the Assyrians blocking their way.
SUMMARY: She tells them
that she is a Jew, and that the Assyrians will lose many men if they attack the
hilltops. She has come to tell their general, Holofernes, a secret way through
which he could take the hill-tops without losing a single man.
They take her to Holofernes. Holofernes is
struck by her beauty. He promises not to harm her. He asks what she wants.
Judith tells him a deceitful story. About how
she she knows a secret way that will lead him to victory over the Israelites.
"And I will lead thee through the midst of
Judith stayed for three days in the camp of the
Assyrians, sleeping in a place apart. Each day, by permission of Holofernes,
she walks out of the Assyrians' camp, with her maid, to pray, and then returns.
Then, on the fourth day Holofernes told his
Bagoas, his eunuch, who had charge over all that he had, to go and invite
Judith to join them in a feast. Because he desired her.
"And Judith came in and sat down, and
Holofernes' heart was ravished with her, and his soul was moved, and he desired
exceedingly her company." He offered her food and wine, and she ate and
drank.
"And Holofernes took great delight in her,
and drank exceedingly much wine, more than he had drunk at any time in one day
since he was born."
When evening came, Bagoas the eunuch dismissed the
servants and sent them to their beds, "for they were all weary, because
the feast had been long". And he closed his master's tent.
And Judith was left alone in the tent. And
Holofernes was lying on his bed, for he was overcome with the strength of the
wine.
Judith had told her servant to wait outside the
tent, as she did every day while her mistress was praying. She told Bagoas that
he too should go, because she wished to pray. So the eunuch went. And Judith
was left alone in the general's tent, and no-one was with her except
Holofernes, lying on his bed.
And Judith, standing at his bed, said in her
heart, "O Lord God of all power, look in this hour upon the works of my
hands for the exaltation of
And she drew near to the rail of the bed, which
was at Holofernes' head, and took down his sword from there, and she drew near
unto the bed and she took hold of his head, and said: "Strengthen me, O
Lord God of
And she struck the sword across his neck two
times with all her might, and she cut his head from off his body, and tumbled
his body down from his bed. She took the canopy from off the bed and wrapped
his head in it. Then, after a little while, she went out of the tent and gave
the bundle to her maid-servant, who put Holofernes' head in among the bag of
food that they carried.
And they both went out of the camp, past the
camp guards, to pray, as they had been accustomed to do in the preceding days.
And they passed straight on, down through the valley, until they came to the
mountains that lead up to their city. And as they approached the city gates,
she called from afar to the soldiers guarding the gates:
"Open, open now the gates….
[Summary
of remaining text: She enters the city and calls a meeting of all the
people, and they light a fire so they can see what they are doing. And she
pulls the head of Holofernes out of the bag. She tells them to hang the head of
Holofernes over the city's battlements. She tells the Israelites to mass their
forces, as if they are preparing to go to battle.
As a result, the Assyrian troops ruch to
Holofernes' tent to ask for orders. And when they go in, they find him dead and
beheaded. And the Assyrians were routed. And the Israelites, all who were
capable of bearing arms, rushed down on the retreating Assyrians, and attacked
them, and "fell on their flank with a great slaughter, until they were
past
"And the people looted the Assyrians' camp
for the space of thirty days. And they gave unto Judith Holofernes' tent, and
his vessels, and all his furniture. And she took them and placed them on her
mule, and made ready her wagons, and heaped them thereon.
And all the women of
And Judith lived to the age of a hundred and
five. And she let her maid go free. And she was honoured by all her people.]
Ends