Commentaria in Judith
Chapter 16
Synopsis of the chapter
Judith leading, all sing a song of victory to God. The people offer holocausts in thanksgiving. Judith, passing a long life in chastity and glory, at length dies gloriously, and the day of her victory is ordered to be celebrated every year thereafter.
1. Then Judith sang this canticle to the Lord, saying: 2. Begin ye to the Lord with timbrels, sing ye to the Lord with cymbals, tune unto him a new psalm, extol and call upon his name.
3. The Lord putteth an end to wars, the Lord is his name. 4. He hath set his camp in the midst of his people, to deliver us from the hand of all our enemies.
5. Assur came out of the mountains from the north, in the multitude of his strength: his multitude stopped up the torrents, and their horses covered the valleys. 6. He said that he would set my borders on fire, and kill my young men with the sword, and give my infants
7. But the Lord almighty hath struck him, and delivered him into the hands of a woman, and hath pierced him.
8. For their mighty one did not fall by young men, neither did the sons of Titan strike him, nor tall giants set upon him: but Judith the daughter of Merari weakened him with the beauty of her face.
9. For she put off the garment of widowhood, and put on the garment of joy, for the rejoicing of the children of Israel.
10. She anointed her face with ointment, and bound up her locks with a crown, she took a new robe to deceive him.
11. Her sandal ravished his eyes, her beauty made his soul her captive, with a sword she cut off his head.
12. The Persians quaked at her constancy, and the Medes at her boldness.
13. Then the camp of the Assyrians howled, when my lowly ones appeared, parched with thirst.
14. The sons of the damsels have pierced them through, and wounded them as children that run away: they perished in battle before the face of the Lord my God.
15. Let us sing a hymn to the Lord, let us sing a new hymn to our God.
16. O Adonai, Lord, thou art great, and glorious in thy power, and no one can overcome thee.
17. Let all thy creatures serve thee: because thou hast spoken, and they were made: thou didst send forth thy spirit, and they were created, and there is no one that can resist thy voice.
18. The mountains shall be moved from the foundations with the waters: the rocks shall melt as wax before thy face.
19. But they that fear thee shall be great with thee in all things.
20. Woe be to the nation that riseth up against my people: for the Lord almighty will take revenge on them, in the day of judgment he will visit them.
21. For he will give fire, and worms into their flesh, that they may burn, and feel for ever.
22. And it came to pass after these things, that all the people after the victory came to Jerusalem to adore the Lord: and as soon as they were purified, they all offered holocausts, and vows, and their promises. 23. And Judith offered for an anathema of oblivion all the arms of Holofernes, which the people had given her, and the curtain which she herself had taken away out of his chamber. 24. And the people were joyful in the sight of the holies, and for the space of three months the joy of this victory was celebrated with Judith. 25. And after those days, every man returned to his house, and Judith was made great in Bethulia, and was most renowned in all the land of Israel. 26. And chastity was joined to her virtue, so that she knew no man all the days of her life, after the death of Manasses her husband. 27. And on festival days she came forth with great glory. 28. And she lived in her husband’s house a hundred and five years, and made her maid free: and she died, and was buried with her husband in Bethulia: 29. And all the people mourned for her seven days. 30. And in all the time of her life there was none that troubled Israel, nor many years after her death. 31. And the day of the festivity of this victory is received by the Hebrews in the number of holy days, and is religiously observed by the Jews from that time until this present day.
1. “THEN JUDITH SANG THIS CANTICLE TO THE LORD,” and all the Israelites, and the whole people, praising God.
“BEGIN YE (sing, chant and rejoice) TO THE LORD.”—Hence, she leading, the rest sang in response; as, Mary the sister of Moses leading, the other women sang in response after the passage of the Red Sea, Exodus 15:20. For so the Greek has in this place: Judith began this song of thanksgiving in a clear voice, and all sang it, and Judith began: Begin ye to God with timbrels, etc. Hence it is plain that Judith was a prophetess, indeed a writer of Holy Scripture, for she uttered this song, which is part of Holy Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
[the name] Jehovah; which, derived from the root *hava*, is the same as “crushing.” She cites it from the Song of Moses, Exodus 15:3: “The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is his name.” See what is said there.
5. “ASSUR CAME OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS FROM THE NORTH (that is, the Assyrian army sent by Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians, with Holofernes as leader).”—For Assyria lies partly east of Judea, partly, and more, north.
“HIS MULTITUDE STOPPED UP THE TORRENTS, AND THEIR HORSES COVERED THE VALLEYS.”—Sanchez, understanding by Nabuchodonosor, who sent Holofernes, Xerxes, fits this to him suitably. For Xerxes led such forces into Greece that rivers are said to have scarcely sufficed for drinking, the land for entering, the seas for sailing. So Paul Orosius, book II, chapter 9. Certainly Herodotus, book VII, and Justin, book II, report that rivers were dried up by his army; of whom likewise Juvenal, Satire 10:
We believe that deep rivers failed, and streams were drunk dry while the Mede dined.
But Xerxes was a Persian, not Assur, that is, an Assyrian. See what is said in the preface.
7. “HATH STRUCK HIM,”—that is, hurt him (Latin *nocuit eum*); for *nocere* formerly governed the accusative, as is plain from Plautus and others.
8. “NEITHER DID THE SONS OF TITAN (that is, “tall giants,” as she adds in explanation) STRIKE HIM.”—You will ask who the sons of Titan are, or, as the Greek has, of the Titans? I answer: Titan or Titanus is feigned by the Poets to be the son of Heaven and Vesta, that is, Earth, and the Titans their sons, of whom Virgil, *Aeneid* VI:
Here the ancient race of Earth, the Titanian youth, hurled down by the thunderbolt, roll in the lowest depth.
“Earth,” says Servius, “first begot the Titans against Saturn, the Giants afterwards against Jove, and fables relate that the Titans were created by Earth, angered against the gods, for her vengeance. Whence also they were called Titans, from *tisis*, that is, vengeance. For Jupiter cast them into Tartarus.” They say the Titans were six brothers and five sisters, named from their mother Titaea, as Diodorus says, of whom one was Japetus, father of Prometheus. Hyperion too is of the number of the Titans, who is said to have first observed and shown the motions of the sun, moon and stars; and therefore is called parent of the sun and the stars. Hence the Sun is called Titan, the Moon Titania, Diana Titania by the Poets. Cicero in his Aratus:
Whom Titan clothed with perpetual light.
Ovid, *Metamorphoses* book III:
And while there she is bathed in the accustomed Titanian water.