Judith
Chapter 2
Orders from Nebuchadnezzar
On the twenty-second day of the first month in the eighteenth year of his reign, there was talk in Nebuchadnezzar’s house, king of the Assyrians, about punishing everyone who disobeyed the king’s orders.
He summoned his ministers and noblemen and shared his secret plan.
He publicly declared the land’s destruction and the punishment of everyone who ignored his call.
As soon as Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians, made this decision, he summoned Holofernes, the chief general of his army and second in command, and told him:
“So says the Great King, Lord of all the earth: You will depart from my presence, taking with you men of true courage—about one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and a large number of horses, including about twelve thousand cavalrymen.
You will visit all the countries in the West and punish everyone because they ignored my orders.
Tell them to surrender to me on land and water, or else in my anger, I will personally march against them. I will cover the entire earth with the footprints of my army, and I will hand them over to my men to be plundered.
The ravines will be filled with their wounded, and rivers and torrents will be teeming with their dead.
I will take their prisoners captive and lead them to the farthest parts of the earth.
Go, then, and take possession of all their territories in my name; if they surrender to you, keep them for me so I can punish them.
Show no mercy to those who resist you. Hand them over to be slaughtered and pillaged across all their lands.
For, as truly as I live and by the power of my kingdom, I will carry out what I have said with my own hands.
And you, do not disobey the words of your lord or fail to carry them out exactly as I have instructed you. Do not change any of them.”
General Holofernes
Holofernes stepped away from his lord and summoned all the key military leaders, generals, and commanders of the Assyrian army.
He assembled about a hundred twenty thousand specially chosen soldiers as instructed by his lord, along with twelve thousand archers.
He positioned them in battle formation.
He brought along camels, donkeys, and mules to carry supplies, along with many sheep, oxen, and goats for food.
He also took enough provisions for each man and a large amount of gold and silver from the king’s treasury.
Then Holofernes marched with his entire army, including chariots and cavalry, leading foot soldiers ahead of King Nebuchadnezzar to cover all the western lands with their forces.
A large crowd of people accompanied them; so many that they resembled locusts or dust of the earth.
After marching for three days from Nineveh, Holofernes and his men reached the plain of Bectileth, where they camped before the city near the mountains to the north of Upper Cilicia.
Then Holofernes gathered his entire army, including foot soldiers, cavalry, and chariots, and marched into the mountain region.
He completely destroyed Put and Lud and plundered all the land of Rassis and Ishmael on the border of the desert south of the country of the Chileans.
Then he followed the Euphrates, crossed Mesopotamia, and destroyed all the cities high above the torrent of Abron until he reached the sea.
He took control of the land of Cilicia, defeated all who opposed him, and moved south to the land of Japheth near Arabia.
He gathered all the children of Midian, burned their tents, and destroyed their livestock.
Then, as he descended into the plain of Damascus during the wheat harvest, he burned all their fields, scattered their animals, killed the young ones, pillaged their villages, devastated their plains, and put all their young men to the sword.
He was feared and terrorized by all the inhabitants of the seacoast, including those in Tyre and Sidon, Sur, Ocina, and Jamnia. The people of Azotus and Ascalon also feared him.
Commentaries
The Great Threat.
The first part of the book focuses on the growing danger faced by the Jewish people. The emperor is not content simply ruling; he also seeks to be revered as a god, with all that comes with that. Therefore, this literary work, although fictional, invites resistance against anything that, above God, tries to impose itself as the only way to live in the world.
Orders from Nebuchadnezzar.
The official appointment of Holofernes as the king’s great lieutenant will require him to subjugate all those who refuse to ally with the emperor in attacking Arfaxad. As a result, Holofernes’ task will be enormous, since, as noted in 1:7-11, many have ignored the royal order. Notice the arrogant tone with which the king issues his commands to the general and the hubris with which he decrees the tragic fate of countless people.
General Holofernes.
Nebuchadnezzar’s orders, akin to divine commands, are promptly obeyed by his general. In just a few lines, a campaign that would take months to complete is quickly summarized, and the advancing army’s overwhelming size is clear. In 3:1-4, we see three expressions of the most extreme and foolish submission: the subjugation of the people, the surrender of their livelihoods, and the giving up of cities and territories. However, political and economic submission alone isn’t enough for the empire; religious submission is also demanded, which Holofernes enforces: destroy every sanctuary, every sacred tree, every deity so Nebuchadnezzar can be worshiped—”all nations may worship Nebuchadnezzar alone and all tribes may call him god, each in his language” (3:8).