Judith 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Holofernes answers Achior in front of the assembled nations, denying that Israel's God can save them and declaring that Nebuchadnezzar is the only god. He swears Achior will not see his face again until he takes revenge on Israel, and then will die with them; he orders his servants to hand Achior over near Bethulia. The Israelites bring Achior into the city, hear his report of the council, and cry out to God; Ozias takes him home and holds a feast, and they call on the God of Israel all night for help.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • The tumult of the men around the council ceased.
   • Holofernes was the chief captain of the army of Assur.
   • Holofernes spoke to Achior.
   • Holofernes spoke to all the Moabites.
   • Holofernes spoke before all the company of the other nations.
2. 6:2
   • Holofernes asked Achior who he was.
   • Holofernes named the hirelings of Ephraim along with Achior.
   • Holofernes said that Achior had prophesied against them as on that day.
   • Holofernes said that Achior had said they should not make war with the people of Israel.
   • Holofernes said Achior gave as the reason that Israel's God would defend them.
   • Holofernes asked who is God but Nabuchodonosor.
3. 6:3
   • Holofernes said Nabuchodonosor will send his power.
   • Holofernes said Nabuchodonosor will destroy them from the face of the earth.
   • Holofernes said their God shall not deliver them.
   • Holofernes called himself and his men Nabuchodonosor's servants.
   • Holofernes said they will destroy them as one man.
   • Holofernes said they are not able to sustain the power of his horses.
4. 6:4
   • Holofernes said they will tread them under foot with them.
   • Holofernes said their mountains shall be drunken with their blood.
   • Holofernes said their fields shall be filled with their dead bodies.
   • Holofernes said their footsteps shall not be able to stand before them.
   • Holofernes said they shall utterly perish.
   • Holofernes attributed this saying to king Nabuchodonosor.
   • Holofernes called Nabuchodonosor lord of all the earth.
   • Holofernes said Nabuchodonosor said that none of his words shall be in vain.
5. 6:5
   • Holofernes called Achior a hireling of Ammon.
   • Holofernes said Achior had spoken these words in the day of his iniquity.
   • Holofernes said Achior shall see his face no more from that day.
   • Holofernes said this would last until he took vengeance on the nation that came out of Egypt.
6. 6:6
   • Holofernes said the sword of his army shall pass through Achior's sides.
   • Holofernes said the multitude of those who serve him shall pass through Achior's sides.
   • Holofernes said Achior shall fall among their slain.
   • Holofernes said this would happen when he returned.
7. 6:7
   • Holofernes said his servants shall bring Achior back into the hill country.
   • Holofernes said they shall set Achior in one of the cities of the passages.
8. 6:8
   • Holofernes said Achior shall not perish until he is destroyed with them.
9. 6:9
   • Holofernes spoke of Achior persuading himself in his mind that they shall be taken.
   • Holofernes told Achior not to let his countenance fall.
   • Holofernes said he had spoken it.
   • Holofernes said none of his words shall be in vain.
10. 6:10
    • Holofernes commanded his servants who waited in his tent.
    • He commanded them to take Achior.
    • He commanded them to bring Achior to Bethulia.
    • He commanded them to deliver Achior into the hands of the children of Israel.
11. 6:11
    • His servants took Achior.
    • They brought him out of the camp into the plain.
    • They went from the midst of the plain into the hill country.
    • They came to the fountains that were under Bethulia.
12. 6:12
    • The men of the city saw them.
    • The men of the city took up their weapons.
    • The men of the city went out of the city to the top of the hill.
    • Every man that used a sling kept them from coming up.
    • They cast stones against them.
13. 6:13
    • The servants got privily under the hill.
    • They bound Achior.
    • They cast him down.
    • They left him at the foot of the hill.
    • They returned to their lord.
14. 6:14
    • The Israelites descended from their city.
    • They came to Achior.
    • They loosed him.
    • They brought him to Bethulia.
    • They presented him to the governors of the city.
15. 6:15
    • In those days the governors were Ozias, Chabris, and Charmis.
    • Ozias was the son of Micha.
    • Ozias was of the tribe of Simeon.
    • Chabris was the son of Gothoniel.
    • Charmis was the son of Melchiel.
16. 6:16
    • They called together all the ancients of the city.
    • All their youth ran together to the assembly.
    • Their women ran together to the assembly.
    • They set Achior in the midst of all their people.
    • Ozias asked Achior about what had been done.
17. 6:17
    • Achior answered.
    • Achior declared to them the words of the council of Holofernes.
    • Achior declared all the words Holofernes had spoken in the midst of the princes of Assur.
    • Achior declared whatsoever Holofernes had spoken proudly against the house of Israel.
18. 6:18
    • The people fell down.
    • The people worshipped God.
    • The people cried unto God.
    • The people spoke, saying what follows.
19. 6:19
    • They addressed the Lord God of heaven.
    • They asked him to behold their pride.
    • They asked him to pity the low estate of their nation.
    • They asked him to look upon the face of those that are sanctified unto him that day.
20. 6:20
    • They comforted Achior.
    • They praised him greatly.
21. 6:21
    • Ozias took Achior out of the assembly to his house.
    • Ozias made a feast for the elders.
    • They called on the God of Israel for help all that night.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

"Assur" is the Greek spelling of Asshur, that is, Assyria. Holofernes is not a ship's captain but the commander in chief of the whole army, the king's second in command on campaign. The Moabites and the "other nations" are contingents from subject peoples marching with the Assyrian force; Achior, who spoke in the previous chapter, leads the Ammonites, a people settled east of the Jordan.

6:2

"Hirelings" are soldiers who fight for pay rather than for their own land, and Holofernes uses the word as an insult, as though Achior were bought by Israel. Ephraim was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and its name was commonly used for Israel as a whole. "As to day" is old English for "as you have done today." Nabuchodonosor is the Greek form of the name Nebuchadnezzar; in this book he rules Assyria from Nineveh, which does not match the Nebuchadnezzar known from history, who was king of Babylon.

6:3

"As one man" carries both senses at once: the army will strike in a single united blow, and it will dispose of the whole nation as easily as it would kill one person. "The power of our horses" means the cavalry, the most feared arm of an ancient field army and the one least useful in steep hill country, which is the point the story will turn on.

6:4

"With them" means with the horses just mentioned. Here the King James and the plain rendering differ because the Greek manuscripts do: the King James has the horses trample Israel underfoot, while the Greek text behind most modern versions has the army burn them up. Mountains drunk with blood and fields full of corpses are stock images of total slaughter. "Their footsteps shall not be able to stand" means they will not be able to hold their ground.

6:5

Ammon is the Ammonite people, whom Achior commands; by calling him a hired man Holofernes denies that he speaks for anyone at all. "The day of thine iniquity" means the day you did wrong, that is, today. "This nation that came out of Egypt" is Israel, and points back to the history of the exodus that Achior had just recited.

6:6

"Pass through thy sides" means run you through the ribs. Holofernes is promising Achior that he will die in the massacre of the people he defended.

6:7

"The cities of the passages" are the towns that guard the passes through the hills, the fortified places an invading army has to take before it can move inland.

6:8

The line is a sneer, not a reprieve: you will be kept alive only long enough to be killed along with them.

6:9

"Let not thy countenance fall" uses an old idiom in which a face falling means visible dismay; the taunt is roughly "don't look so glum." The King James here lacks a negative found in the Greek, which reads "if you hope in your heart that they will not be taken"; the plain rendering follows the Greek. "None of my words shall be in vain" is the language of a royal decree, a boast that the king's word always takes effect.

6:10

Bethulia is the hill town that blocks the route toward Jerusalem and is the setting for the rest of the book. The name appears nowhere outside Judith and no site has ever been securely identified with it.

6:11

"The fountains" are natural springs. They lie outside and below the walls, which is normal for a hill town and also its weak point, since a besieger who seizes the springs controls the water supply.

6:12

A sling is a leather strap loaded with a stone and whirled before release. It was the standard long range weapon of hill country militia, cheap, silent, and deadly at a distance that kept attackers off the slope.

6:13

"Privily" means secretly. The Assyrians worked their way close in against the base of the slope, where the defenders on the crest could not reach them with stones, dumped Achior there, and withdrew.

6:15

Bethulia is governed by three men jointly rather than by a single ruler. Naming a man by his father and his tribe was the ordinary way of identifying someone precisely. Simeon was one of the twelve tribes descended from the sons of Jacob.

6:16

In the King James, "ancients" does not mean people of long ago; it means elders, the senior men who governed a town and settled its disputes. The detail that the young men and the women ran to the assembly marks this as an emergency gathering of the whole population, not the usual meeting of elders alone.

6:17

"Princes" in the King James usually means chief men or high officers generally, not sons of a king; here it is Holofernes' senior commanders. "Spoken proudly" translates a phrase meaning great or swollen words, that is, arrogant boasting.

6:18

Falling down here means prostration, going face to the ground, the posture used before a king and in urgent prayer.

6:19

"Low estate" means a humbled, brought down condition. To "look upon the face of" someone is to turn attention toward them with favor. "Sanctified unto thee" means set apart as belonging to God; the phrase is used of the people themselves, not only of priests.

6:21

Taking Achior into his own house and giving a feast makes him a protected guest, which publicly reverses the humiliation of being dumped bound at the foot of the hill. Calling on God through the whole night is an act of formal, sustained public petition in a crisis.