Judith 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the eighteenth year, Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians takes counsel with his officers and nobles about taking revenge on the whole earth, and they decree the destruction of all who do not obey his word. He sends Holofernes, the chief captain of his army, west with a hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand horsemen, ordering him to demand surrender, to hold those who yield until the day of their punishment, and to kill and plunder those who rebel. Holofernes musters the army with its supplies, marches out from Nineveh, and destroys peoples and cities from Cilicia to the plain of Damascus, until fear of him falls on those living along the sea coast.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • In the eighteenth year, on the twenty-second day of the first month, there was talk in the house of Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians.
   • The talk was that he should avenge himself on all the earth, as he had said.
2. 2:2
   • He called together all his officers and all his nobles.
   • He communicated his secret counsel to them.
   • He declared out of his own mouth the afflicting of the whole earth.
3. 2:3
   • They decreed to destroy all flesh that did not obey the commandment of his mouth.
4. 2:4
   • When he had ended his counsel, Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians called Holofernes.
   • Holofernes was the chief captain of his army.
   • Holofernes was second in rank to him.
   • Nabuchodonosor spoke to Holofernes.
5. 2:5
   • Nabuchodonosor said that these are the words of the great king, the lord of the whole earth.
   • He told Holofernes that he would go forth from his presence.
   • He told Holofernes to take with him men that trust in their own strength.
   • The men were to be a hundred and twenty thousand footmen.
   • The men were to include twelve thousand horses with their riders.
6. 2:6
   • He told Holofernes to go out against all the west country.
   • He said the reason was that they disobeyed the commandment of his mouth.
7. 2:7
   • He told Holofernes to declare to them that they prepare earth and water.
   • He said he would go forth in his wrath against them.
   • He said he would cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of his army.
   • He said he would give them as spoil to his army.
8. 2:8
   • He said their slain would fill their valleys and brooks.
   • He said the river would be filled with their dead until it overflowed.
9. 2:9
   • He said he would lead them as captives to the utmost parts of all the earth.
10. 2:10
    • He told Holofernes to go forth and take all their territory for him in advance.
    • He said that if they yielded themselves to Holofernes, Holofernes was to reserve them for him until the day of their punishment.
11. 2:11
    • He said that concerning those who rebel, Holofernes' eye was not to spare them.
    • He said Holofernes was to put them to the slaughter and to plunder them throughout all his territory.
12. 2:12
    • He swore by his own life and by the power of his kingdom.
    • He said that whatever he had spoken he would do by his own hand.
13. 2:13
    • He told Holofernes not to transgress any one of the commandments of his lord.
    • He told Holofernes to accomplish them fully as he had commanded him.
    • He told Holofernes not to defer doing them.
14. 2:14
    • Holofernes went out from the presence of his lord.
    • Holofernes called all the governors, the captains, and the officers of the army of Assur.
15. 2:15
    • Holofernes mustered chosen men for the battle, as his lord had commanded him.
    • The chosen men numbered a hundred and twenty thousand.
    • There were twelve thousand archers on horseback.
16. 2:16
    • He arranged them in the manner a great army is ordered for war.
17. 2:17
    • He took camels and asses for their baggage.
    • The King James omits the mules that the Greek lists with the camels and asses.
    • They were a very great number.
    • He took sheep and oxen and goats without number for their provision.
18. 2:18
    • He took plenty of victual for every man.
    • He took very much gold and silver out of the king's house.
19. 2:19
    • He went forth with all his army on the march.
    • The purpose was to go before king Nabuchodonosor.
    • The purpose was to cover all the face of the earth westward.
    • They went with chariots, horsemen, and their chosen footmen.
20. 2:20
    • A great mixed multitude went out with them.
    • They were like locusts.
    • They were like the sand of the earth.
    • They could not be numbered because of their multitude.
21. 2:21
    • They went out from Nineve a three days' journey toward the plain of Bectileth.
    • They pitched camp from Bectileth near the mountain that is at the left hand of upper Cilicia.
22. 2:22
    • He took all his army, his footmen, horsemen, and chariots.
    • He went from there into the hill country.
23. 2:23
    • He destroyed Phud and Lud.
    • They plundered all the children of Rasses.
    • The King James says he plundered the children of Israel, where the Greek says the children of Ismael.
    • Those people were toward the wilderness at the south of the land of the Chellians.
24. 2:24
    • He went over the Euphrates.
    • He went through Mesopotamia.
    • He broke down all the high cities that were upon the river Arbonai.
    • He did so as far as the sea.
25. 2:25
    • He took the borders of Cilicia.
    • He killed all that resisted him.
    • He came to the borders of Japheth, which were toward the south, opposite Arabia.
26. 2:26
    • He surrounded all the children of Madian.
    • He burned their tents.
    • He plundered their sheepfolds.
27. 2:27
    • He went down into the plain of Damascus in the time of wheat harvest.
    • He burned all their fields.
    • He destroyed their flocks and herds.
    • He plundered their cities.
    • He utterly wasted their plains.
    • He struck all their young men with the edge of the sword.
28. 2:28
    • The fear and dread of him fell upon the inhabitants of the sea coast.
    • These included those in Sidon and Tyrus.
    • These included those who dwelt in Sur and Ocina.
    • These included all who dwelt in Jemnaan.
    • Those who dwelt in Azotus and Ascalon feared him greatly.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

Years were counted from the start of a king's reign, so this means the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's rule. The first month is Nisan, falling in March or April. Note that the book calls Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians reigning at Nineveh: the Nebuchadnezzar known to history was king of Babylon, and Nineveh had been destroyed some years before his reign began. The story combines names, titles and settings drawn from several different periods.

2:2

Nobles were the rich and powerful families of the kingdom. A king kept them close because he needed their men and their money for a war.

2:3

"All flesh" is a Hebrew expression covering every living creature, used here of the whole human population.

2:4

"Chief captain" does not mean a small officer. Holofernes commanded the entire army and answered to no one but the king.

2:5

"Thus saith the great king" is the standard opening of a royal order, the exact words a messenger repeated when delivering it. "Great King" was a formal title actually used by Assyrian and Persian rulers, asserting authority over lesser kings; "lord of the whole earth" pushes the claim further.

2:6

The "west country" is everything west of Mesopotamia as seen from Nineveh: Syria, Phoenicia, the inland hill country and the coastal plain down toward Egypt.

2:7

Handing over earth and water was a recognized formal act of surrender in the Persian empire, reported by the Greek historian Herodotus. Giving a token of soil and water conceded the land itself and everything on it to the king, before any fighting took place.

2:9

Assyrian and Babylonian kings routinely deported conquered populations to distant parts of the empire, breaking up a people's ties to its own land so that it could not easily revolt.

2:10

In the King James Version "coasts" means borders or territory in general, not only seashore.

2:11

"Let not thine eye spare them" is a Hebrew idiom for showing no mercy; the eye is where pity was thought to begin.

2:12

"As I live" is a formal oath in which the speaker stakes his own life on keeping his word. In the Hebrew scriptures this wording is normally spoken by God; here a human king uses it of himself.

2:14

"Assur" is the King James spelling of Asshur, the name of the Assyrian national god and of the old capital city, and the source of the name Assyria.

2:15

Archers on horseback shot arrows while riding. They were the hardest soldiers to fight, because they could strike and ride away before anyone reached them.

2:17

In the King James Version "carriages" means the loads that are carried, that is, baggage, not wheeled vehicles.

2:18

"Victual" is food supplies, the army's rations.

2:19

"Voyage" in the King James Version means any journey, by land as readily as by sea. "All his power" means his whole armed force; "power" often meant fighting strength in 1611.

2:20

"Sundry countries" means various nations: auxiliary troops levied from subject peoples, along with the traders and camp followers who trailed a large army.

2:21

Nineveh was the Assyrian capital, on the Tigris in what is now northern Iraq. A day's march for an army was roughly fifteen to twenty miles. Cilicia is the region in southeastern Asia Minor, today southern Turkey. Bectileth is not known from any other source, and the route described here cannot be traced consistently on a map.

2:23

Put and Lud are names from the list of nations in Genesis 10, usually connected with Libya and with Lydia in Asia Minor; neither lies anywhere near the desert route described here. Rasses and the Chellians are otherwise unknown. The King James Version reads "the children of Israel" at this point, but most Greek manuscripts read Ishmael, meaning the desert-dwelling Ishmaelite tribes, which fits the geography of the verse; the rendering follows that reading.

2:24

Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers, that is, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. "High cities" are towns built on raised or fortified ground. The river Arbonai is unknown, and "the sea" is presumably the Mediterranean.

2:25

Japheth is a name from the list of nations in Genesis 10, where it stands for the peoples to the north and west; no district of that name is known in the south facing Arabia. "Over against" means facing or opposite.

2:26

Midian was the desert region east and southeast of the Gulf of Aqaba, in northwestern Arabia, home to nomadic herders. "Tabernacles" in the King James Version simply means tents, and "sheepcotes" are sheepfolds, the walled or brushwood enclosures where flocks were penned at night.

2:27

The wheat harvest fell in late spring, around May and June. Burning the fields at that moment destroyed the grain while it still stood ripe and unreaped, wiping out an entire year's food at a stroke. "Smote with the edge of the sword" is a Hebrew idiom, literally the mouth of the sword, meaning put to death in battle or in massacre.

2:28

These are the cities of the Mediterranean coast, listed roughly north to south. Sidon and Tyre were the great Phoenician trading ports in what is now Lebanon. Sur, Ocina and Jemnaan lay further south, Jemnaan being Jamnia, later Yavneh. Azotus and Ascalon are Ashdod and Ashkelon, two of the old Philistine cities in the southern coastal plain.