Commentaria in Judith
Chapter 9
Synopsis of the chapter
Judith in ashes and sackcloth prays God to give her strength to kill Holofernes, that by his death she may free her country from siege.
1. And when they were gone, Judith went into her oratory, and putting on haircloth, put ashes on her head: and falling down prostrate before the Lord, she cried to the Lord, saying: 2. O Lord God of my father Simeon, to whom thou gavest a sword to execute vengeance against the strangers, who had defiled the virgin in her disgrace, and laid bare her thigh to her confusion, 3. And thou gavest their wives for a prey, and their daughters into captivity, and all the spoils to be divided among thy servants who were zealous for thy zeal; help, I beseech thee, O Lord my God, me a widow. 4. For thou hast done the things of old, and those other things that followed, and hast devised the things that are now, and that are to come, and the things which thou hast designed have been done, 5. And all the ways thou hast shown have been ready at hand, and thy judgments thou hast placed in thy foreknowledge. 6. Look now upon the camp of the Assyrians, as thou wast pleased then to look upon the camp of the Egyptians, when they pursued after thy servants with arms, trusting in their chariots and in their horsemen, and in a multitude of warriors. 7. But thou didst look upon their camp, and darkness wearied them. 8. The deep held their feet, and the waters covered them. 9. So let it be with these also, O Lord, who trust in their multitude, and in their chariots, and in their pikes, and glory in their spears, 10. And they know not that thou art our God, who destroyest wars from the beginning, and the Lord is thy name. 11. Lift up thy arm as from the beginning, and crush their power by thy power: let their power fall in thy wrath, who promise themselves to violate thy sanctuary, and to defile the tabernacle of thy name, and to throw down with their sword the horn of thy altar. 12. Make his pride be cut off with his own sword: 13. Let him be caught in the net of his own eyes in my regard, and do thou strike him by the grace of my lips. 14. Give me constancy in my mind, that I may despise him, and fortitude that I may overthrow him. 15. For this will be a glorious monument for thy name, when he shall fall by the hand of a woman. 16. For thy power, O Lord, is not in a multitude, nor is thy pleasure in the strength of horses, nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee. 17. O God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and Lord of all creation, hear me a poor wretch, making supplication to thee, and presuming of thy mercy. 18. Remember, O Lord, thy covenant, and put thou words in my mouth, and strengthen the resolution in my heart, that thy house may continue in thy holiness: 19. And all nations may acknowledge that thou art God, and there is no other besides thee.
1. “WHEN THEY WERE GONE (correct, with the Roman and Greek texts, ‘when they were gone’), JUDITH WENT INTO HER ORATORY, AND PUTTING ON HAIRCLOTH.”—The Greek, which the interpreter of the Complutensian and Royal editions renders: “She took off the sack she was wearing,” that is, haircloth. But that is contrary to the Latin Vulgate version word for word. Therefore translate with Vatablus: “She laid bare the sack in which she was clothed,” namely having laid aside her outer garments, remaining clothed only in sack, and showing it bare; she calls the sack haircloth. She bared, therefore, before God her inner haircloth, showing it to God as a sign of penance and of the penitent, and of suppliant entreaty. With haircloth therefore and ashes she adorned, indeed armed, her prayer, of which matter I shall give the symbolic reason at verse 14.
“PROSTRATING HERSELF BEFORE THE LORD.”—The Greek adds that this was done in the evening, when incense was offered to God in the Temple at Jerusalem, to signify that the public sacrifice in the temple, which was offered continually in the evening, cooperated with these prayers of Judith, and that Judith joined her prayers to it, that by public supplication she might turn aside the public calamity, and that thereby the way of sacrifice might be shown, namely that it prepared the victory for Judith.
2. “O LORD GOD OF MY FATHER SIMEON (hence it is plain that Judith was of the tribe of Simeon), WHO GAVEST HIM A SWORD,—that is, strength—FOR VENGEANCE (Greek *ekdikesin*, that is, vengeance) AGAINST THE STRANGERS WHO WERE VIOLATORS”—of Dina his sister. Note: God gave strength to Simeon to avenge the defilement of Dina, but not to be carried out in such a manner as they used. For although they did it from zeal, as follows, yet that zeal was against the covenants entered into with the Sichemites, and exposed Jacob with all his household to the danger of all being killed by their neighbours; whence Jacob rebuked them. Yet God permitted Sichem the defiler, and his subjects the Sichemites, to be killed by Simeon, and their goods plundered, in punishment of the defilement committed by Sichem their prince. So Lyra. See what is said on Genesis 34. So God gave houses to the lying midwives, not on account of the lie, but on account of the affection and kindness shown to the infants whom they saved from death, Exodus 1. Judith therefore praises the zeal of Simeon in avenging the defilement of Dina, but does not praise the manner of avenging, that is, that on his own authority he killed the Sichemites by guile.
4. “AND THOSE OTHER THINGS THAT FOLLOWED (that is, other examples of vengeance after others) THOU HAST DEVISED,”—namely to do. For Judith prepares the way to recalling the vengeance taken by God on Pharao in the Red Sea.
9. “AND IN THEIR PIKES.”—Pikes are lances, and long spears, hunting-spears, etc.
11. “THE HORN OF THY ALTAR.”—Indeed the altar had horns, but by them was signified the majesty, strength and glory of the altar and of the sacrifices offered upon it.
13. “AND DO THOU STRIKE HIM BY THE GRACE OF MY LIPS,”—that is, thou wilt strike Holofernes with my elegant words of “charity,” that is, with enticing loves; for charity here is understood not as divine but human, by catachresis; of chaste love, I mean, with which he can love and court me as a wife. For although Judith did not want Holofernes as a husband, yet she could lawfully entice him to a chaste and conjugal love of her, that she might thus have an occasion of killing him craftily while off his guard. For even if Holofernes were to be carried away into a base and fornicating love of her, Judith did not intend that, but merely permitted it, to cover her deed, by which she purposed that he should be slain, which she could not accomplish in another way. She intended, therefore, to entice Holofernes by her beauty to an honourable and conjugal love, that thus she might kill him loving her and off his guard. For this deed of Judith, in which God wrought singularly in killing Holofernes and delivering Judea, is rather to be excused, and ascribed to charity towards her country and to a peculiar instinct of God, than accused of lust or scandal, as Holy Scripture excuses it, and the Fathers and Interpreters, and especially St. Ambrose, book *On Widows*.
16. “FOR THY POWER IS NOT IN A MULTITUDE,”—that thou shouldst prepare victory through many and strong soldiers, but through a single woman, weak and unwarlike, thou wilt accomplish the whole matter. So Artabanus said to Xerxes, exulting in so many forces: “A huge army is routed by a small one, whenever God strikes with fear or thunder those whom He detests.” As Heliodorus reports, book VII.
17. “PRESUMING,” that is, greatly confiding.
See what is said chapter 6, verse 15.
18. “REMEMBER, O LORD, THY COVENANT,”—that is, the pact made with the Hebrews through Moses, David and other Princes.
“THAT THY HOUSE (thy temple) MAY CONTINUE IN THY HOLINESS,” that is, in the holy religion and worship of Thee, by which it is truly sanctified.