Commentaria in Judith
Chapter 1
Arphaxad builds Ecbatana, is conquered by Nabuchodonosor king of Nineveh, who, exulting in the victory, summons all nations to surrender; but when they resist, he resolves to subdue them all.
1. Now Arphaxad king of the Medes had brought many nations under his dominion, and he built a very strong city, which he called Ecbatana, 2. Of stones squared and hewed: he made the walls thereof seventy cubits broad, and thirty cubits high: and the towers thereof he made a hundred cubits high. 3. But on the square of them each side was extended the space of twenty feet: and he made the gates thereof according to the height of the towers: 4. And he gloried as a mighty one in the force of his army, and in the glory of his chariots. 5. Now in the twelfth year of his reign, Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Ninive the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him 6. In the great plain, which is called Ragau, about the Euphrates, and the Tigris, and the Jadason, in the plain of Erioch the king of the Elicians. 7. Then was the kingdom of Nabuchodonosor exalted, and his heart was elevated: and he sent to all that dwelt in Cilicia, and Damascus, and Libanus, 8. And to the nations that are in Carmelus, and Cedar, and to the inhabitants of Galilee in the great plain of Esdrelon, 9. And to all that were in Samaria, and beyond the river Jordan even to Jerusalem, and all the land of Jesse, till you come to the borders of Ethiopia. 10. To all these Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians sent messengers: 11. But they all with one mind refused, and sent them back empty, and rejected them without honour. 12. Then king Nabuchodonosor was angry against all that land, and swore by his throne and kingdom that he would revenge himself of all those countries.
Verses 1–4. “NOW ARPHAXAD KING OF THE MEDES.”—The “now” is partly a mark of the opening of the history, or book; for this is what the Hebrew vau, that is “and,” denotes, “now,” as I said on Ezechiel 1:4. So Cicero often begins his letters thus: “You then, you indeed, I indeed”; partly it signifies that this history has been taken and cut from the ancient diaries, or chronicles, of the Hebrews, in which this history was attached to the histories of earlier times, and so was connected with them by “now.” So Serarius.
Arphaxad.—This Arphaxad, or Arphad, is the same as Arbaces. Hence Serarius and others understand by Arphaxad Arbaces, who, having slain Sardanapalus, made himself king of Media, of whom more at verse 5.
Second, others with Bellarmine and Salianus judge that Arphaxad is Diocles or Dejoces, who ruled the Medes in the time of Manasses king of Juda. For Dejoces was succeeded by Phraortes, says Herodotus, Phraortes by Cyaxares, Cyaxares by Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus, although Ctesias in Diodorus assigns other and more kings of the Medes.
Moreover Dejoces built Ecbatana, as Herodotus, Eusebius and others attest, although Genebrard understands by Arphaxad here Cyaxares, and Salianus Phraortes.
Third, others who think that this history happened under Xerxes suppose that Arbaces was a prefect of the Medes, who from Nineveh, or from Darius, son of Hystaspes, obtained the name and title of royal dignity; for all the kings of Media took their name from the first king Arbaces, and were surnamed Arbaces, or Arbacidae, as the Roman Emperors were called Caesars from Julius Caesar; the Egyptians, Ptolemies from the first Ptolemy; the Greeks were called Seleucidae from the first king Seleucus; the Parthians were called Arsacidae from the first Arsaces.
Moreover “Arphaxad” in Hebrew is the same as “weakening,” as it were “laying waste,” says Pagninus, and aptly. For by his proud buildings and chariots he weakened, exhausted and as it were laid waste his people, and therefore was despoiled and subjugated by Nabuchodonosor.
“HE BUILT A VERY STRONG CITY WHICH HE CALLED ECBATANA.”—The name Ecbatana, or Ecbatanae, is used as though indeclinable. It is established that this city existed before. Hence Diodorus, book II, asserts that it existed before Semiramis, when he says that after Babylon was built she came here, raised splendid palaces there, and, since the city also suffered from want of water, cut through the mountain Oronte, which is twelve stadia distant, and brought an abundance of water into it.
Yet Arphaxad is here said to have built it, because he enlarged and adorned it with new palaces, towers and walls. Hence the Greek has: “He built round about Ecbatana walls of hewn stones.”
So Nabuchodonosor says that he founded Babylon, that is, adorned and enlarged it, Daniel 4:27. For the tower of Babel and Babylon were first founded by Nemrod with his companions, Genesis chapter 10. So Romulus is said to have founded Rome, though Virgil says, *Aeneid* VIII:
Then king Evander, founder of the Roman citadel.
2. “OF STONES SQUARED AND HEWED.”—The Greek adds: three cubits broad, and six long.
“HE MADE THE WALLS THEREOF SEVENTY CUBITS BROAD” (immense was this breadth of the walls, on which many chariots could therefore advance and run at once), “AND THIRTY CUBITS HIGH”
3. “BUT ON THE SQUARE OF THEM (the towers) EACH SIDE WAS EXTENDED THE SPACE OF TWENTY FEET,”—that is, each side of the towers with the other facing and opposite to it; that is, each of the four sides of the towers was twenty feet. For it was a geometrical square, all of whose sides are equal. For “twenty feet” the Greek has sixty cubits.
4. “AND HE GLORIED AS A MIGHTY ONE.”—This was the cause of the war, namely pride and the lust of dominion, such as that of the ancient monarchs of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans: whence the civil war arose between Pompey and Julius Caesar, because Pompey would not have Caesar his equal, and Caesar would not have Pompey his superior. Like is the boasting of that Thraso in Seneca, who vaunts thus:
And like a star, greater, and above all, touching the lofty pole with proud head; I dismiss the gods above; I have attained the height of my prayers. O me, most exalted of the heavenly ones, and king of kings! I have surpassed my prayers.
5. “NOW IN THE TWELFTH YEAR” (he began this war, which ended in the seventeenth year, if we believe the Greek text, which says that this war lasted six years) “OF HIS REIGN NABUCHODONOSOR.”—You will ask who this Nabuchodonosor was. I answer: first, Zonaras and Genebrard judge that he was that great Nabuchodonosor who overthrew Jerusalem with the temple and led the Jews into Babylon. But he reigned in Babylon, not in Nineveh, as is said here, and he conquered the Jews, whereas this one was conquered by them through Judith. Second, Bellarmine and Salianus judge that he was Merodach Baladan (whom Ptolemy in the *Almagest* calls Mardocempad), who reigned indeed in Babylon, but, having conquered Asarhaddon king of Nineveh, fixed the seat of his kingdom in Nineveh itself, as the Turk did at Constantinople after he took it. For Nabuchodonosor was a name common to the kings of the Chaldeans. Hence Nabonassar in the Alphonsine tables, and in Albategnius, is always called Nabuchodonosor. See Serarius here, Question IV. For both names are the same, or nearly the same: whence some think that this Nabuchodonosor was the father of that Nabuchodonosor who was the father of Nabuchodonosor the Great, who led the Jews away to Babylon.
Third, Serarius in the same place judges that this Nabuchodonosor was the son of Asarhaddon, who on his father’s death succeeded to the kingdom of Nineveh and of the Assyrians. Serarius adds, and Genebrard, Pererius and others agree, that Asarhaddon, or Sarphedon, as the Septuagint have it, is Sardanapalus: wherefore this Nabuchodonosor was the son of Sardanapalus, who, wishing to avenge his father’s death, subdued in war Arbaces, prefect of Media, who had driven his father to death and the fire, and deprived him of kingdom and life. Wherefore Arbaces is here called Arphaxad, but by Diodorus and Ctesias is called Diocles.
Diodorus favours this, book II, chapter 1, saying that Sardanapalus, seeing that the destruction of himself and of Nineveh was imminent from Arbaces, sent his sons out of Nineveh into Paphlagonia to his prefect Cottus, that they might escape the hands of Arbaces. Hear Diodorus: “The king (Sardanapalus) being besieged in the city (Nineveh), many nations, from desire of liberty, went over to Arbaces. The king, seeing the kingdom in great danger, sent three sons and two daughters with a great store of gold and silver into Paphlagonia to Cottus the governor.” Among these three sons was this Nabuchodonosor, who, aided by the prefect of Paphlagonia, with an armed band recovered Nineveh and the paternal kingdom, and conquered and killed Arbaces. Certainly if we say that the history of Judith happened before the Babylonian captivity under Manasses, this opinion seems very probable; for then Asarhaddon reigned, who, if he was Sardanapalus, then also surely Arbaces reigned in Media; for he, after Sardanapalus was conquered and slain, made himself king of Media. But if we say that the history of Judith (as I said in the preface) happened after the Babylonian captivity, it must consequently be asserted that this Nabuchodonosor was either Cambyses the son of Cyrus, as St. Augustine, Eusebius, Bede and others think; whence the *Alexandrian Chronicle*: “They say,” it says, “that Cambyses is called by the Hebrews the second Nabuchodonosor,” because they were afflicted by both; or Darius Hystaspis, as Sanchez holds. For Xerxes swelled so much with his forces and strength that he thought he could command not only the land but also the waters and the sea. Hear Herodotus, book VII: “From Abydos to the opposite mainland there is a crossing of seven stades, which, joined by bridges, a huge storm that came upon it broke up and dissolved altogether. When Xerxes heard this, bearing it with indignation, he ordered three hundred lashes to be inflicted on the Hellespont, and a pair of fetters to be sunk into its sea. I have also heard that he sent with these men those who should brand the Hellespont with marks, speaking barbarous words: ‘Your master inflicts this penalty on you, because you have wronged him.’” Valerius Maximus reports the same, book III, chapter 7; and adds that besides this he threatened darkness to Mount Athos, because it had been hostile and injurious to him. What is more foolish, insolent and arrogant? But because Xerxes reigned in Persia, not in Nineveh, and was a friend and well-wisher to the Jews, as Josephus attests, so that his son Artaxerxes sent Esdras and Nehemias back into Judea to rebuild Jerusalem, which he would certainly not have done if his father Xerxes had been so shamefully slain by the Jews in his general Holofernes. Certainly it seems truer that this Nabuchodonosor was one of the princes and prefects of Xerxes, to whom for his merits, strength and power Xerxes, or rather Darius Hystaspis, the father of Xerxes, granted the kingdom of Nineveh and Assyria, but under tax and tribute; who, seeing Xerxes beaten by the Greeks, refused this tribute and made himself an absolute king, and gradually growing in arms, strength and peoples, invaded and overcame Arphaxad king of Media. In origin and race he seems to have been (for his name Nabuchodonosor, which is Chaldean, indicates this) and perhaps was a grandson, or rather great-grandson, or kinsman of Nabuchodonosor the Great, and therefore took his name.
Moreover “Nabuchodonosor” in Hebrew is the same as “restricting the generation with anguish,” says Pagninus in *Hebrew Names*, and aptly. For he restricted the Jews and the other nations and reduced them to extremities, as is plain from what follows.
“NABUCHODONOSOR KING OF THE ASSYRIANS, WHO REIGNED IN NINIVE.”—[He differs from] Nabuchodonosor the Great, who reigned in Babylon, and therefore transferred the monarchy from Nineveh and the Assyrians to Babylon and the Chaldeans: although Nineveh was near to Babylon, and the Assyrians to the Chaldeans, and therefore the monarchy of the Chaldeans arose from the Assyrians; wherefore it is reckoned as one and the same with it. Hence also the name Nabuchodonosor is partly Chaldean, partly Assyrian. For Nabo was the name of an idol of the Chaldeans; Asar was the name of the kings of the Assyrians, as is plain in Salmanasar, Teglathphalasar, Asarhaddon, which are compounded from Asar.
“HE FOUGHT AGAINST ARPHAXAD, AND OVERCAME HIM,”—that is, he took him, and pierced him with darts. For the Greek has thus: In his war Nabuchodonosor was strengthened, and overthrew all the power of Arphaxad, and all his cavalry, and all his chariots; and became master of his cities, and came as far as Ecbatana, and took possession of its towers, and laid waste its streets; and turned its beauty into disgrace. And he took Arphaxad in the mountains of Ragau, and pierced him with his darts, and utterly destroyed him, and exterminated him to that day. The proud boasting of Arphaxad in his forces and chariots deserved this slaughter: for, as Seneca says in *Hercules*:
A proud avenger, God, follows at the back. The same in *Thyestes*:
You to whom the ruler of sea and land has given great right of death and life, lay aside your swollen and haughty looks;
He whom the day saw proud as it fled, the same the day saw lying low as it fled: let no one trust too much in prosperity.
Wherefore Artabanus gave this prudent counsel to king Xerxes (under whom these things happened, indeed whom Sanchez thinks to have been Nabuchodonosor): “You see how God strikes the very great animals with lightning, and does not suffer them to grow insolent in their thoughts; but the little ones He does not vex in the least. You see how He always hurls such darts against the greatest buildings and trees. For God loves to cut down, or lop off, all that stand out.” And the reason is added: “For He suffers no one to think anything great of himself, except Himself.”
What Nabuchodonosor did after winning this victory the Greek narrates thus: He returned with them (his forces to Nineveh), and the whole army which had joined him, a very great multitude of warriors, and he was there at ease, given to feasting, both he and his army, for a hundred and twenty days.
7. “THEN WAS THE KINGDOM OF NABUCHODONOSOR EXALTED, AND HIS HEART WAS ELEVATED,”—so that, thinking himself stronger than all, he aspired to the monarchy and resolved to subjugate all nations to himself. Truly Seneca in the *Trojan Women*:
The king cannot be held by reins, nor anger, nor ardent enemy, nor victory, and the fortunate sword, whose lust, once it is stained, is frenzied.
“AND HE SENT TO ALL,”—envoys, to demand that all nations submit to Nabuchodonosor the victor. These things are told otherwise in the Greek, namely that Nabuchodonosor before the victory over Arphaxad sent messengers to all the neighbouring nations begging help against Arphaxad; and when it was refused by the nations, he swore that he would cut them off; soon fought with Arphaxad, in the 17th year of his reign, and conquered him, and pierced him with darts, and overthrew Ecbatana; then returned with triumph to Nineveh and there gave himself to ease and luxury for 120 days. But the Latin Vulgate edition must be authentic for us, and the Greek is either to be reconciled with it, if it can be; if it cannot, rejected: in this place it can be reconciled. For Nabuchodonosor could have sent messengers twice, namely first before the battle, as the Greek has; second after the battle, as the Vulgate has.
that he might be laid low by Judith, and be laughed at by the nations,
8. “AND TO THE NATIONS THAT ARE IN CARMELUS AND CEDAR, AND TO THE INHABITANTS OF GALILEE,”—The Greek enumerates more nations. Hence it is clear that Nabuchodonosor was not Xerxes. For to him as monarch most of the nations were subject, and in the first place the Galileans: for from Esdras and Nehemias it is established that Darius, father of Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, sent into Judea Nehemias and other leaders, who in their name governed the Jews.
11. “WHO ALL WITH ONE MIND REFUSED, AND SENT THEM BACK EMPTY, AND REJECTED THEM WITHOUT HONOUR” (indeed with ignominy, as the Greek has).—“THAT HE WOULD REVENGE HIMSELF” (that is, avenge himself).—For he thought that a huge injury and disgrace had been done him by the nations, and therefore, to recover and defend his honour wronged by them, that he ought to avenge this reproach by war and destruction: as many today think that, in defence of their honour, they ought to avenge themselves on, and kill, those who have injured them by some insult. But this is a paralogism of the world, and the lying spirit of the devil. So “to defend” is taken for “to avenge” in chapter 9, verse 2, and by the Apostle, Romans 12:19: “Not defending yourselves,” that is, avenging, “my dearly beloved.” See what is said there.
The pride of Nabuchodonosor, growing insolent from victory, deserved more, that as he himself had laid low the arrogance of Arphaxad, so his own insolence might be laid low.