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JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES  AN ACCOUNT OF THE  DEPORTATIONS    THE JERUSALEM OF THE BALKANS

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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 Ecbatana.

 

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 Ecbatana.

 

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 Lebanon and the plain of Damascus, and people everywhere were in fear and terror of the Assyrians.

 

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 Judaea, where lived the children of Israel. And Holophernes camped behind a nearby ridge, for a full month, bringing together the entirety of his army.

 

And the children of Israel were very afraid. And they were scared for Jerusalem, and for the temple of their God. Because they had only recently come out of captivity, and all the people of Judaea were together again, and thir holy vessels, and the temple building, and the alter had been newly sanctified after the profanation.

 

The children of Israel began to organise. They took all the tops of the high mountains in the region, and fortified the villages that were in them, and brought in provisions in preparation for war, because the harvest had just been brought in. The Jews took the high parts of the hill country, because there was only one way into Judaea – and that was through a narrow pass which could only take men marching two abreast. 

 

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 sais:

 

"We will not be afraid of the children of Israel: for lo it is a people that hath no power nor might to make the battle strong. So we shall go up, and they will be a prey to be devoured by the whole of thine army, lord Holofernes!"

 

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 Judaea, until thou comest over to Jerusalem. And I will set thy seat in the midst of Jerusalem. And thou shalt drive them as sheep that have no shepherd. And a dog shall not so much as open his mouth before thee. For these things were told to me according to my foreknowledge, and I was sent to tell thee…"

 

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 Jerusalem. For now is the time to help thine inheritance, and to do the thing that I have planned, for the destruction of the enemies which have risen up against us."

 

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 Israel, this day."

 

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 Damascus and the borders thereof".

 

"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 Israel ran together to see her. And they blessed her and made a dance among them for her. And she took branches in her hand, and gave to the women that were with her. And they made themselves garlands of olive, she and they that were with her, and she went before all the people in the dance, leading all the women. And all the men of Israel followed in their armour with garlands and with songs in their mouths.

 

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

 

 

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