Judith 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The book opens by dating its story to the twelfth year of Nabuchodonosor, who reigned in Nineveh, and to the days of Arphaxad, who reigned over the Medes and fortified Ecbatana with huge walls, towers, and gates. Nabuchodonosor makes war on Arphaxad and sends word to peoples from Persia to the borders of Ethiopia to join him, but they treat his order as nothing and send his ambassadors away in disgrace, and he swears to take revenge on all of them. In the seventeenth year he defeats Arphaxad's forces, takes Ecbatana, kills Arphaxad, and returns to Nineveh, where he and his army rest and feast for a hundred and twenty days.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor.
   • Nabuchodonosor reigned in Nineveh.
   • Nineveh was a great city.
   • In those same days Arphaxad reigned over the Medes.
   • Arphaxad reigned in Ecbatana.
2. 1:2
   • Arphaxad built walls around Ecbatana.
   • The walls were made of hewn stones.
   • The stones were three cubits broad.
   • The stones were six cubits long.
   • He made the height of the wall seventy cubits.
   • He made the breadth of the wall fifty cubits.
3. 1:3
   • He set the towers of the wall upon the city's gates.
   • The towers were a hundred cubits high.
   • The breadth of the towers at the foundation was sixty cubits.
4. 1:4
   • He made the gates of the city.
   • The gates were raised to a height of seventy cubits.
   • The breadth of the gates was forty cubits.
   • The gates were made for his mighty armies to go out through.
   • The gates were made for the setting in array of his footmen.
5. 1:5
   • In those days king Nabuchodonosor made war against king Arphaxad.
   • The war was fought in the great plain.
   • That plain lies in the borders of Ragau.
6. 1:6
   • All who dwelt in the hill country came to him.
   • All who dwelt by the Euphrates came to him.
   • All who dwelt by the Tigris came to him.
   • All who dwelt by the Hydaspes came to him.
   • Those of the plain of Arioch king of the Elymeans came to him.
   • Arioch was king of the Elymeans.
   • Very many nations of the sons of Chelod assembled themselves to the battle.
7. 1:7
   • Nabuchodonosor was king of the Assyrians.
   • Nabuchodonosor sent to all who dwelt in Persia.
   • He sent to all who dwelt westward.
   • He sent to those who dwelt in Cilicia.
   • He sent to those who dwelt in Damascus.
   • He sent to those who dwelt in Libanus.
   • He sent to those who dwelt in Antilibanus.
   • He sent to all who dwelt along the sea coast.
8. 1:8
   • He sent to those among the nations who were of Carmel.
   • He sent to those of Galaad.
   • He sent to those of the higher Galilee.
   • He sent to those of the great plain of Esdrelom.
9. 1:9
   • He sent to all who were in Samaria and its cities.
   • He sent beyond Jordan as far as Jerusalem.
   • He sent to Betane.
   • He sent to Chelus.
   • He sent to Kades.
   • He sent to the river of Egypt.
   • He sent to Taphnes.
   • He sent to Ramesse.
   • He sent to all the land of Gesem.
10. 1:10
    • The sending extended beyond Tanis and Memphis.
    • He sent to all the inhabitants of Egypt.
    • The sending extended as far as the borders of Ethiopia.
11. 1:11
    • All the inhabitants of the land made light of the commandment of Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians.
    • They did not go with him to the battle.
    • They were not afraid of him.
    • He was before them as one man, an equal.
    • They sent his ambassadors away from them without effect.
    • They sent his ambassadors away with disgrace.
12. 1:12
    • Nabuchodonosor was very angry with all this country.
    • He swore by his throne and his kingdom.
    • He swore that he would surely be avenged upon all the coasts of Cilicia.
    • He swore that he would be avenged upon Damascus.
    • He swore that he would be avenged upon Syria.
    • He swore that he would slay with the sword all the inhabitants of the land of Moab.
    • He swore that he would slay the children of Ammon.
    • He swore that he would slay all Judea.
    • He swore that he would slay all who were in Egypt.
    • His vengeance would extend to the borders of the two seas.
13. 1:13
    • He marched in battle array with his power against king Arphaxad.
    • This happened in the seventeenth year.
    • He prevailed in his battle.
    • He overthrew all the power of Arphaxad.
    • He overthrew all of Arphaxad's horsemen.
    • He overthrew all of Arphaxad's chariots.
14. 1:14
    • He became lord of Arphaxad's cities.
    • He came to Ecbatana.
    • He took the towers of Ecbatana.
    • He spoiled the streets of Ecbatana.
    • He turned the beauty of Ecbatana into shame.
15. 1:15
    • He took Arphaxad in the mountains of Ragau.
    • He smote Arphaxad through with his darts.
    • He utterly destroyed Arphaxad that day.
16. 1:16
    • Afterward he returned to Nineveh.
    • He returned together with all his company of sundry nations.
    • His company was a very great multitude of men of war.
    • There he took his ease and banqueted.
    • He and his army banqueted for a hundred and twenty days.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

"Nabuchodonosor" is the Greek spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, and the book uses Greek forms of names throughout (Nineve for Nineveh, Galaad for Gilead, and so on). The description does not match known history: the Nebuchadnezzar of record ruled Babylon, not Assyria, and Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, was destroyed in 612 BC, some years before he came to the throne. No Median king named Arphaxad is known from any other source. Ecbatana, however, was the real capital of the Medes, a people of what is now northwestern Iran; the site is the modern city of Hamadan. Dating by the regnal year of a king ("the twelfth year") was the normal way to fix a date in the ancient Near East.

1:2

A cubit was roughly eighteen inches, about the length of a forearm from elbow to fingertip. On that reckoning the wall stands about a hundred and five feet high and seventy-five feet thick, and each stone is about four and a half feet thick and nine feet long. These are extravagant figures: the walls of real ancient cities were a fraction of this.

1:3

About a hundred and fifty feet high, with a base about ninety feet across.

1:4

About a hundred and five feet high and sixty feet wide. "Footmen" are infantry, soldiers on foot as opposed to cavalry and chariots.

1:5

Ragau is the Greek form of Rages, a Median city southeast of modern Tehran. The country there is mountainous, so placing a "great plain" on its borders is one of several geographical oddities in this chapter.

1:6

The Hydaspes is a river of the Punjab, a tributary of the Indus far to the east in what is now Pakistan; no river of that name flows anywhere near the Euphrates and Tigris. The Elymeans are the people of Elam, in what is now southwestern Iran. Arioch is a royal name borrowed from Genesis 14. "Chelod" has never been identified with any known people or place.

1:7

Cilicia is the coastal region of southeastern Asia Minor, in modern southern Turkey. Libanus and Antilibanus are the Greek names of the two parallel mountain ranges of Lebanon, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon. "The sea coast" means the Mediterranean shore. The list sweeps from Persia in the east to the Mediterranean in the west, naming in effect everyone west of the empire's heartland.

1:8

Carmel is the mountain ridge that juts into the sea at modern Haifa. Galaad is Gilead, the highland region east of the Jordan. Esdrelom is the Greek form of Esdraelon, the wide plain across northern Israel also called the Valley of Jezreel; it was the standard battleground of the region, flat enough for chariots.

1:9

Samaria is the central hill country of Israel; "beyond the Jordan" means the eastern side of the river. Betane and Chelus cannot be identified. Kades is probably Kadesh-barnea, an oasis in the desert south of Judea. "The river of Egypt" is not the Nile but the Wadi el-Arish, a seasonal desert stream traditionally treated as the boundary between Canaan and Egypt. Taphnes and Ramesse are the Greek forms of Tahpanhes and Rameses, cities of the eastern Nile delta, and Gesem is Goshen, the delta district where the Israelites are said to have settled in Genesis and Exodus.

1:10

Tanis and Memphis were major Egyptian cities, Tanis in the delta and Memphis near modern Cairo. "Ethiopia" here translates the Greek Aithiopia, meaning the land immediately south of Egypt, that is Nubia or Kush in what is now Sudan, and not the modern country of Ethiopia.

1:11

"He was before them as one man" means they rated him as no more than a single ordinary man, not a king worth fearing. The ambassadors were envoys carrying a formal summons to join the war; sending them home empty-handed and humiliated was itself a recognized insult, roughly equivalent to a declaration that the sender's authority was not accepted.

1:12

Swearing "by his throne and kingdom" stakes his own royal standing on the oath: he cannot back down without losing face. In the King James Version "coasts" means borders or territory in general, not seashore. Which "two seas" is meant is not stated; readers have taken the phrase as the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, or as the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.

1:13

Chariots were light carts pulled by fast horses, carrying a driver and a fighter. They were the quickest and most feared part of an ancient army.

1:14

"Turned its beauty into shame" is a stock phrase for stripping a splendid city bare: its ornament carried off, its public places wrecked, so that what had been admired is now an object of pity or scorn.

1:15

"Darts" in the King James Version means throwing spears or javelins, weapons of war, not the small darts of a modern game. The Greek manuscripts differ at the end of the verse: some read that he destroyed him "on that day," others "to this day."

1:16

A feast lasting a hundred and twenty days was a way of showing off. It displayed the king's riches and rewarded his soldiers for the war.