Judith 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Holofernes offers Judith food and wine from his own table, and she refuses, saying she will eat only what she brought with her. For three days she stays in the camp, going out at night to wash and to pray, and Holofernes gives orders that his guards let her pass. On the fourth day he holds a private feast and sends Bagoas to invite her; she comes, dressed in her finest, eats and drinks what her maid prepared, and Holofernes, delighted with her, drinks more wine than he had ever drunk in one day.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • Holofernes commanded that Judith be brought in where his silver vessels were set
   • Holofernes ordered that his own food be prepared for her
   • Holofernes ordered that she drink of his own wine
2. 12:2
   • Judith said she would not eat of Holofernes' food
   • Judith said her reason was to avoid an offence
   • Judith said provision would be made for her from the things she had brought with her
3. 12:3
   • Holofernes said to Judith that if her own provision ran out, they would have no way to give her the like
   • Holofernes said there was no one of her nation among them
4. 12:4
   • Judith swore by the life of Holofernes' soul
   • Judith called Holofernes her lord
   • Judith said his handmaid would not use up the things she had with her before the Lord accomplished by her hand what he had determined
5. 12:5
   • The servants of Holofernes brought Judith into the tent
   • Judith slept until midnight
   • Judith arose toward the morning watch
6. 12:6
   • Judith sent word to Holofernes
   • Judith asked that her lord command that his handmaid be allowed to go out to pray
7. 12:7
   • Holofernes commanded his bodyguard not to hinder her
   • Judith stayed in the camp three days
   • Judith went out at night into the valley of Bethulia
   • Judith washed herself at the spring of water by the camp
8. 12:8
   • When Judith came up, she prayed to the Lord God of Israel
   • Judith asked that he direct her way to the raising up of the children of her people
9. 12:9
   • Judith came in clean
   • Judith remained in the tent
   • Judith remained there until she ate her food toward evening
10. 12:10
    • On the fourth day Holofernes made a drinking feast for his own servants only
    • Holofernes called none of his officers to the banquet
11. 12:11
    • Holofernes spoke to Bagoas the eunuch
    • Bagoas had charge over all that Holofernes had
    • Holofernes told Bagoas to go and persuade the Hebrew woman who was with him
    • Holofernes told Bagoas to persuade her to come to them and eat and drink with them
12. 12:12
    • Holofernes said it would be a shame to their person to let such a woman go without having had her company
    • Holofernes said that if they did not draw her to themselves, she would laugh them to scorn
13. 12:13
    • Bagoas went out from the presence of Holofernes
    • Bagoas came in to Judith
    • Bagoas told her that the fair damsel should not hesitate to come to his lord
    • Bagoas said she would be honoured in his lord's presence
    • Bagoas said she would drink wine and be merry with them
    • Bagoas said she would be made that day as one of the daughters of the Assyrians who serve in the house of Nabuchodonosor
14. 12:14
    • Judith asked who she was that she should contradict her lord
    • Judith said she would speedily do whatever pleased him
    • Judith said this would be her joy until the day of her death
15. 12:15
    • Judith arose
    • Judith adorned herself with her apparel and all her woman's ornaments
    • Judith's maid went ahead and spread soft skins on the ground for her opposite Holofernes
    • Judith had received those skins from Bagoas for her daily use
    • The skins were for her to recline and eat upon
16. 12:16
    • Judith came in and reclined
    • Holofernes' heart was ravished with her
    • Holofernes' mind was moved
    • Holofernes greatly desired to be with her
    • Holofernes was watching for an opportunity to deceive her from the day he had seen her
17. 12:17
    • Holofernes told Judith to drink
    • Holofernes told Judith to be merry with them
18. 12:18
    • Judith said she would drink
    • Judith called Holofernes lord
    • Judith said her life was magnified in her that day more than all the days since she was born
19. 12:19
    • Judith took and ate and drank before Holofernes
    • What she ate and drank was what her maid had prepared
20. 12:20
    • Holofernes took great delight in Judith
    • Holofernes drank a great deal of wine
    • Holofernes drank more wine than he had drunk on any single day since he was born

Words Worth Explaining

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

12:1

"Plate" in 1611 means vessels made of silver or gold, not a dinner plate, and "meats" means food of any kind, not flesh only. Eating from a commander's own table and drinking his own wine was a public mark of high favor.

12:2

Judith is objecting to the food itself, not to the company. Jewish law forbade many of the foods a Gentile table would serve and forbade wine that had been poured out to other gods, so eating it would have made her ritually unclean. The King James "offence" carries its older sense of a stumbling, an occasion of sin, rather than rudeness or insult.

12:4

"As thy soul liveth" is a standard oath formula, roughly "as surely as you are alive." The rest of her sentence names no object for what God has decided to do, so it can be heard two ways at once: Holofernes can take it as a promise of his own victory.

12:5

The night was divided into watches for the setting of sentries. The morning watch was the last of them, running roughly from two in the morning until sunrise.

12:6

Judith calls herself "thine handmaid," meaning "your servant." This was a polite way to speak to someone powerful. She was not really his servant.

12:7

A "fountain" in the King James is a natural spring, not a built fountain. The washing is ritual: someone who had been living among Gentiles, their food and their images, was reckoned unclean, and washing in fresh water restored the state of cleanness expected before prayer.

12:8

"Raised up" here means helped and made strong again. Judith was asking God to save her town.

12:9

"Meat" in 1611 means food of any kind. "Clean" here is the ritual cleanness of verse 7, not the absence of dirt.

12:10

"His own servants" means his personal household attendants. The point of the verse is that the army's officers were deliberately left out, making this a small private party rather than an occasion of state.

12:11

A eunuch was a castrated male servant. Such men were trusted with the running of a great man's household and with access to its women, and could rise to considerable power; Bagoas is a Persian name borne by more than one court official in Persian history.

12:12

"Her company" is a euphemism for sex, here and again in verse 16. "A shame for our person" uses the plural of rank, as a great man speaking of his own dignity.

12:13

Nabuchodonosor is the Greek form of the name Nebuchadnezzar. To be made "one of the daughters of the Assyrians which serve in the house of Nabuchodonosor" means to be taken into the king's palace at the capital as one of its women, which is a polite way of describing what Holofernes intends.

12:14

"Gainsay" means to speak against, to contradict or refuse.

12:15

"All her woman's attire" means her full formal dress with its jewelry. Guests at such a banquet reclined on the ground rather than sitting on chairs; the fleeces are the ones Bagoas had issued her for her own daily use, so that she ate her own food, on her own bedding, beside him.

12:16

"Ravished" in 1611 means carried away or overwhelmed, with none of the modern sense of rape; the violence of the word is in his feelings, not his actions. The Greek behind "deceive her" covers seduction, so the sentence means he had been watching for his chance to get her into bed.

12:18

"My life is magnified in me this day" is a literal rendering of the Greek and is deliberately open. It can be heard as nothing more than "this is the greatest day of my life."

12:19

Judith eats only the food her maid brought and prepared. Even at the general's feast, she keeps the food rules she spoke about earlier.