For Teaching

Judith 5: What the Passage Says

97 claims across 24 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Judith 5 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Holofernes is told that the Israelites have prepared for war, blocked the mountain passes, and barricaded the flatlands, and he angrily calls the leaders of Moab, Ammon and the coast to tell him who this people is. Achior, the leader of the Ammonites, answers with an account of their history: from the Chaldeans to Mesopotamia, to Canaan, down to Egypt and slavery, out through the Red sea, and into the hill country; while they did not sin they prospered, and when they turned away they were defeated and carried off, and now they have returned. He then sets out a condition for Holofernes: if the people have sinned against their God, go up and attack; if there is no wrongdoing in them, pass them by. The crowd around the tent complains and says Achior should be killed, and urges Holofernes to attack.

Claim by Claim

5:1
- Holofernes was the chief captain of the army of Assur.
- It was reported to Holofernes that the children of Israel had prepared for war.
- It was reported that the children of Israel had shut up the passages of the hill country.
- It was reported that the children of Israel had fortified all the tops of the high mountains.
- It was reported that the children of Israel had laid obstacles in the plains.
5:2
- Holofernes became very angry.
- Holofernes called all the princes of Moab.
- Holofernes called the captains of Ammon.
- Holofernes called all the governors of the sea coast.
5:3
- Holofernes spoke to them.
- Holofernes addressed them as sons of Chanaan.
- Holofernes told them to tell him who this people is that dwells in the hill country.
- Holofernes asked what cities they inhabit.
- Holofernes asked how large their army is.
- Holofernes asked wherein their power and strength lie.
- Holofernes asked what king is set over them, or captain of their army.
5:4
- Holofernes asked why they had determined not to come and meet him.
- Holofernes said they alone had refused, more than all the inhabitants of the west.
5:5
- Achior was the captain of all the sons of Ammon.
- Achior spoke to Holofernes.
- Achior asked that his lord hear a word from the mouth of his servant.
- Achior said he would declare the truth concerning this people.
- Achior said this people dwells near Holofernes.
- Achior said this people inhabits the hill country.
- Achior said no lie would come out of the mouth of his servant.
5:6
- Achior said this people are descended from the Chaldeans.
5:7
- Achior said they formerly sojourned in Mesopotamia.
- Achior said they sojourned there because they would not follow the gods of their fathers.
- Achior said those gods were in the land of Chaldea.
5:8
- Achior said they left the way of their ancestors.
- Achior said they worshipped the God of heaven.
- Achior said the God of heaven was the God whom they had come to know.
- Achior said they were cast out from the face of their gods.
- Achior said they fled into Mesopotamia.
- Achior said they sojourned there many days.
5:9
- Achior said their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned.
- Achior said their God commanded them to go into the land of Chanaan.
- Achior said they dwelt there.
- Achior said they were increased with gold and silver.
- Achior said they were increased with very much cattle.
5:10
- Achior said a famine covered all the land of Chanaan.
- Achior said they went down into Egypt.
- Achior said they sojourned there while they were nourished.
- Achior said they became a great multitude there.
- Achior said their nation could not be numbered.
5:11
- Achior said the king of Egypt rose up against them.
- Achior said the king of Egypt dealt craftily with them.
- Achior said the king of Egypt brought them low with labour in brick.
- Achior said the king of Egypt made them slaves.
5:12
- Achior said they cried out to their God.
- Achior said their God smote the land of Egypt with plagues for which there was no healing.
- Achior said the Egyptians cast them out of their sight.
5:13
- Achior said God dried up the Red sea before them.
5:14
- Achior said God brought them by the way of Sina and Cades-Barne.
- Achior said they cast out all that dwelt in the wilderness.
5:15
- Achior said they dwelt in the land of the Amorites.
- Achior said they destroyed by their strength all the inhabitants of Esebon.
- Achior said they passed over Jordan.
- Achior said they took possession of all the hill country.
5:16
- Achior said they cast out before them the Chanaanite.
- Achior said they cast out the Pherezite.
- Achior said they cast out the Jebusite.
- Achior said they cast out the Sychemite.
- Achior said they cast out all the Gergesites.
- Achior said they dwelt in that country many days.
5:17
- Achior said that while they did not sin before their God, good things were with them.
- Achior said their God hates iniquity.
- Achior said their God was with them.
5:18
- Achior said that when they departed from the way he appointed them, they were destroyed in many battles very severely.
- Achior said they were led captive into a land that was not their own.
- Achior said the temple of their God was cast to the ground.
- Achior said their cities were taken by their enemies.
5:19
- Achior said they have now returned to their God.
- Achior said they have come up from the dispersion where they were scattered.
- Achior said they have taken possession of Jerusalem.
- Achior said their sanctuary is in Jerusalem.
- Achior said they are settled in the hill country.
- Achior said the hill country was desolate.
5:20
- Achior addressed Holofernes as his lord and master.
- Achior said that if there is error in this people and they sin against their God, this would be their stumbling.
- Achior said that in that case they should go up and make war on them.
- Achior said that in that case they would overcome them.
5:21
- Achior said that if there is no iniquity in their nation, his lord should pass by.
- Achior gave as the reason that their Lord might defend them.
- Achior gave as the reason that their God might be for them.
- Achior said they would become a reproach before all the earth.
5:22
- Achior finished speaking these words.
- All the people standing round about the tent murmured.
- The chief men of Holofernes said that Achior should be cut down.
- All that dwelt by the sea coast said that Achior should be cut down.
- All that dwelt in Moab said that Achior should be cut down.
5:23
- They said they would not be afraid of the children of Israel.
- They said Israel is a people that has no strength.
- They said Israel is a people that has no power for a strong battle.
5:24
- They said they would go up.
- They said Israel would be a prey devoured by all of Holofernes' army.
- They addressed Holofernes as lord.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1: "Assur" is the Greek spelling of Asshur, that is, Assyria, the empire centered on the Tigris in what is now northern Iraq. Judith uses old Assyrian names for a story whose other details belong to much later periods, so the setting is a composite rather than a datable moment.
5:2: Moab and Ammon were small kingdoms east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. The "governors of the sea coast" are the rulers of the Mediterranean coastal cities, who had already surrendered to Holofernes earlier in the book. All these men are vassals brought along on the campaign.
5:3: "Chanaan" is the Greek spelling of Canaan, the old name for the land between the Jordan and the sea. Holofernes calls these men "sons of Chanaan" because they are locals: the point of the address is that they should know the region's peoples when he does not.
5:4: From an Assyrian point of view "the west" meant everything from Syria down to Egypt. The King James "more than all the inhabitants of the west" means "unlike every other people of the west," who had all submitted without a fight.
5:5: Achior is a fictional character, the chief of the Ammonite contingent. Speaking of himself as "thy servant" rather than "I" is the ordinary polite form for addressing a superior at court, not an unusual show of humility.
5:6: The Chaldeans were the people of southern Mesopotamia, the region around the city of Ur. Achior is about to summarize the whole story of Israel from Genesis onward for a foreign audience, which is why he starts with the ancestors' place of origin.
5:7: To "sojourn" is to live somewhere as a resident foreigner, without land of one's own or the rights of a citizen. The word recurs through this speech and marks a status, not just a stay.
5:8: "The God of heaven" was the standard title Jews used for their God when speaking to foreigners in the Persian and Greek periods, since it named him in terms a non Jew would recognize. Note also that in this retelling the family is expelled by its own people for abandoning the ancestral gods, where the account in Genesis has Abraham simply called to leave.
5:9: Chanaan is Canaan, the old name for the land that later became Israel.
5:10: A famine is a long stretch when crops fail and there is not enough food for people to eat.
5:11: In 1611 "subtil" meant crafty or scheming, not faint or delicate. The brick making refers to the forced labor described in Exodus, where Israelite slaves made mud bricks for Egyptian building projects.
5:12: A plague is a disaster that strikes a whole country at once, like disease or swarms of insects. This points back to the ten plagues in Exodus.
5:13: The Hebrew name behind "Red sea" is yam suph, "sea of reeds." Which body of water it meant has been argued over since antiquity.
5:14: "Sina" is Sinai, the mountain of the law. "Cades-Barne" is Kadesh-Barnea, an oasis in the desert south of Canaan where Israel camped for a long stretch during the wilderness years. Both names appear here in their Greek forms.
5:15: The Amorites held the territory east of the Jordan. "Esebon" is the Greek form of Heshbon, the capital city of King Sihon, whose defeat is told in Numbers. Crossing the Jordan from east to west is the entry into the land itself.
5:16: This is the standard list of the peoples living in Canaan before Israel, given here in Greek spellings: Pherezite is Perizzite, Sychemite means the people of Shechem, Gergesites are the Girgashites. Such lists appear repeatedly in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy.
5:17: To sin means to do what God has told you not to do.
5:18: This compresses the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by Babylon in 587 BC and the deportation of much of the population, the period known as the exile.
5:19: The return from exile and the rebuilding of the sanctuary happened under Persian rule, long after Assyria itself had fallen. Achior's summary therefore places the story after an event that could not have coexisted with an Assyrian invasion, one of several deliberate anachronisms in Judith.
5:20: "Error" and "iniquity" here both mean a fault of this people against their own God. Achior's advice turns entirely on that point: the whole history he has just told is arranged to show when they lose and when they do not.
5:21: To "pass by" is to march past and leave them alone rather than attack. "A reproach before all the world" means an object of open mockery among the surrounding nations.
5:22: "Murmured" in the King James is stronger than modern "murmur": it means grumbled in angry protest. Where the King James says "kill him," the Greek says cut him to pieces.
5:23: "The face of the children of Israel" is a Hebrew turn of phrase in which "face" stands for the presence of a person, so the sense is simply "of the Israelites themselves."
5:24: "Prey to be devoured" is hunting talk. They speak of Israel as a helpless animal caught and eaten by the army.

Read Judith 5