Judith 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Judith tells the people to hang Holofernes' head on the wall and to arm themselves at dawn and go out as if to attack, and she says the Assyrians will run to Holofernes' tent, not find him, and flee. Achior the Ammonite is brought in, sees the head, faints, and then bows at Judith's feet and hears her account of everything she did; the people shout for joy, and Achior believes in God, is circumcised, and is joined to the house of Israel. At dawn the men go out, the Assyrians go to wake their commander, and Bagoas finds Holofernes dead with his head gone. He cries out to the troops, and the captains tear their clothes as a great noise spreads through the camp.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • Judith spoke to them.
   • Judith told them to listen to her.
   • Judith addressed them as her brethren.
   • Judith told them to take this head.
   • Judith told them to hang the head upon the highest place of their walls.
2. 14:2
   • Judith said the morning would appear.
   • Judith said the sun would come forth upon the earth.
   • Judith told each of them to take his weapons when morning came.
   • Judith told every valiant man to go forth out of the city.
   • Judith told them to set a captain over them.
   • Judith told them to act as though they would go down into the plain toward the watch of the Assyrians.
   • Judith told them not to go down.
3. 14:3
   • Judith said the Assyrians would take their armour.
   • Judith said the Assyrians would go into their camp.
   • Judith said the Assyrians would rouse up the captains of the army of Assur.
   • Judith said they would run to the tent of Holofernes.
   • Judith said they would not find Holofernes.
   • Judith said fear would fall upon them.
   • Judith said they would flee before the Israelites.
4. 14:4
   • Judith told them to pursue the Assyrians.
   • Judith said all who inhabit every border of Israel would pursue them.
   • Judith told them to strike the Assyrians down as they went.
5. 14:5
   • Judith told them to do this before doing the other things.
   • Judith told them to call Achior the Ammonite to her.
   • Judith said the purpose was that Achior might see and recognize the man who despised the house of Israel.
   • Judith said Holofernes had sent Achior to the Israelites as it were to his death.
6. 14:6
   • They called Achior out of the house of Ozias.
   • Achior came.
   • Achior saw the head of Holofernes in a man's hand.
   • The head was seen in the assembly of the people.
   • Achior fell down on his face.
   • Achior's spirit failed.
7. 14:7
   • They revived Achior.
   • Achior fell at Judith's feet.
   • Achior bowed down before her.
   • Achior spoke.
   • Achior said Judith was blessed in all the tents of Judah.
   • Achior said that in every nation those who heard her name would be troubled.
8. 14:8
   • Achior told Judith to tell him all the things she had done in these days.
   • Judith declared to him all that she had done.
   • Judith declared it in the midst of the people.
   • Judith's account covered from the day she went forth until the hour she spoke to them.
9. 14:9
   • Judith left off speaking.
   • The people shouted with a loud voice.
   • The people made a joyful noise in their city.
10. 14:10
    • Achior saw all that the God of Israel had done.
    • Achior believed in God greatly.
    • Achior circumcised the flesh of his foreskin.
    • Achior was joined unto the house of Israel unto this day.
11. 14:11
    • The morning arose.
    • They hanged the head of Holofernes upon the wall.
    • Every man of Israel took his weapons.
    • They went forth by bands unto the ascents of the mountain.
12. 14:12
    • The Assyrians saw them.
    • The Assyrians sent word to their leaders.
    • The leaders came to their captains and tribunes and to every one of their rulers.
13. 14:13
    • They came to Holofernes' tent.
    • They spoke to the man who had charge of all Holofernes' things.
    • They told him to waken their lord.
    • They said the slaves had been bold to come down against them to battle.
    • They said the slaves had done so that they might be utterly destroyed.
14. 14:14
    • Bagoas went in.
    • Bagoas knocked at the curtain of the tent.
    • Bagoas supposed that Holofernes had slept with Judith.
15. 14:15
    • No one answered.
    • Bagoas parted the curtain and went into the bedchamber.
    • Bagoas found Holofernes cast down dead.
    • Holofernes' head had been taken from him.
16. 14:16
    • Bagoas cried with a loud voice.
    • Bagoas cried with weeping and groaning and a mighty cry.
    • Bagoas rent his garments.
17. 14:17
    • Bagoas went into the tent where Judith lodged.
    • Bagoas did not find Judith.
    • Bagoas leaped out to the people.
    • Bagoas cried aloud.
18. 14:18
    • Bagoas said the slaves had dealt treacherously.
    • Bagoas said one woman of the Hebrews had brought shame upon the house of king Nabuchodonosor.
    • Bagoas said Holofernes lay upon the ground.
    • Bagoas said Holofernes' head was not on him.
19. 14:19
    • The captains of the Assyrian army heard these words.
    • They rent their coats.
    • Their minds were exceedingly troubled.
    • There was a cry and a very great noise in the midst of the camp.

Words Worth Explaining

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

14:1

The "highest place of your walls" is the battlement, the top edge of the city wall. Fixing an enemy commander's head where both armies could see it was a recognized act of war: proof to your own side that he was dead, and a shock to his.

14:2

The Assyrians ruled a huge empire in the land we now call Iraq. Their army had camped around this small town for weeks. The "watch" was the line of guards posted at the edge of their camp.

14:3

Assur is the Greek form of Asshur, the name of the Assyrian homeland and of its old capital, used through this book to mean Assyria and its army.

14:4

The King James "coast" means border or territory, not seashore. Bethulia sits inland in the hills; nobody in this scene lives by the sea.

14:5

Achior is an Ammonite commander introduced earlier in the book. Asked by Holofernes about the Israelites, he warned that they could not be beaten unless they had sinned against their God; Holofernes had him bound and left outside Bethulia so that he would die along with the town when it fell. The Ammonites were a people east of the Jordan and long-standing rivals of Israel.

14:6

Ozias, the Greek form of Uzziah, is the chief magistrate of Bethulia, its leading official, who took Achior into his own house when the townspeople cut him loose.

14:7

The King James "tabernacles" here simply means tents or dwellings, so "all the tabernacles of Juda" means every household in Judah. Juda is the Greek form of Judah.

14:10

Circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, was the physical mark of belonging to Israel, normally performed on a male infant on the eighth day. For an adult foreigner to accept it was to take on Israel's obligations and be counted as one of the people. The detail is pointed because Israelite law elsewhere barred Ammonites from the assembly (Deuteronomy 23:3). "Unto this day" means that at the time the book was written his line was still reckoned part of Israel.

14:11

The King James "straits" means narrow passes. Bethulia stood above the narrow routes up into the hill country, which is why the town mattered; the men are taking position at the head of those passes. "By bands" means in organized companies, not as a crowd.

14:12

A tribune is an officer over a thousand men; the Greek word is chiliarch, literally "ruler of a thousand." The King James uses the familiar Roman army title for a rank in the Assyrian army.

14:13

"Slaves" is contempt rather than description: the Assyrians speak of the peoples they expect to subjugate as slaves already. The man in charge of everything Holofernes owned is his household steward, named in the next verse as Bagoas.

14:14

Bagoas is a Persian name borne by several well-known court officials who were eunuchs, and that is his role here: the servant trusted with his master's private quarters and with the women brought into them. The commander's tent had an outer entrance and an inner sleeping chamber, so knocking outside and hearing nothing told Bagoas only that he should wait.

14:15

The Greek word translated "the floor" is uncertain and may mean the threshold of the sleeping chamber or a footstool beside the bed. Either reading places the body away from the bed itself, where Judith rolled it after killing him in chapter 13.

14:16

Tearing one's own clothes was the standard public sign of grief, horror or outrage, a deliberate and instantly recognizable gesture; the ruined garment announced the disaster to everyone who saw it.

14:18

Nabuchodonosor is the Greek form of Nebuchadnezzar. This book presents him as king of the Assyrians reigning at Nineveh, whereas the Nebuchadnezzar known to history was king of Babylon and reigned after Nineveh had already fallen. The book sets its story in a deliberately loose historical frame and uses the name for a great foreign conqueror. "The house of king Nabuchodonosor" means his royal court and dynasty, not a building.

14:19

"Wonderfully" in 1611 English means amazingly or exceedingly, not "in a wonderful way": they were troubled to an extraordinary degree. "Rent their coats" is the same tearing of clothes described in verse 16; the coat is the tunic worn next to the body.