THE BOOK OF JUDITH
Lesson 1
Introduction and Chapter 1
PART I
Nebuchadnezzar and Arphaxad and
The Campaign Against Arphaxad
Holy Lord,
You do not forget your faithful people, especially when they are in distress.
You come to their rescue when they invoke Your holy name with a righteous heart,
as You came to the aid of Judith and her people in their time of need.
You heard the plea of a virtuous widow, whom you used to rescue her frightened
people from a vicious enemy. Hear our plea, Lord, to guide us in our study of
the Book of Judith. Amen.
We usually think of men in covenant with God advancing the cause of salvation history, but the truth is that strong and intelligent women abound in Scripture. They are women who are the antithesis of what we might expect from a patriarchal society. They are not passive or timid, submissive, or compliant. Instead, they are active, bold, fearless, and assertive. In the Bible, this pattern of strong women begins with the first woman, Eve, although with admittedly disastrous results. In Genesis chapter 3, when approached by the serpent, five verbs describe Eve's actions: "said," "saw," "took," "ate," and "gave" (Gen 3:2-6), while Adam, sadly, is the subject of only one verb: "ate" (Gen 3:6). The pattern of women taking an active role in salvation history continues with heroines like:
to name a few. What is particularly interesting is how many non-Israelite women assume the roles of Israel's heroines, such as Rahab, Tamar the Canaanite, Jael/Yael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, and Ruth the Moabitess. Many of these women are in Jesus's ancestral line (Mt 1:1-16). These women showed absolute trust in Divine Providence, indicating that God's saving will is sometimes realized by persons acting in unlikely ways.
The Book of Judith is part of the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but is considered apocryphal/deuterocanonical by Jews and Protestants. The Hebrew original of Judith is lost. It exists in Greek texts and in the Latin Vulgate.
Judith may mean "the Jewess," and she personifies the true daughter of Israel; it is remarkable that, here and in Esther, the Jewish nation is saved by a woman. One imaginative writer has described the heroine, Judith, as a version of a sixth-century BC "Bond girl." Like the heroines of the James Bond movies, she triumphs in a powerful combination of cunning, courage, disinformation, and beauty. Judith is a respected widow of the town of Bethulia in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, north of Jerusalem. She objects to the city elders' plan to surrender to the invading Gentile army and forms her own plan to rescue her people. The events probably took place during the invasion by the Syrian Seleucid king Antiochus in his attempt to destroy the Jewish religion and replace it with worship of the pantheon of Greek gods, and the Covenant People's struggle for religious and political independence (see the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees).
The inspired writer ignores the historical events of Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Jerusalem, destruction of the Temple, and the exile of the citizens of Judah to Babylon in 587/6 BC. 1 If the story's setting were two centuries earlier, in the 8th century BC, before the birth of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, during the failed Assyrian successful conquest of Israel but failed conquest of Judah, it would have a reasonable time frame. The inspired writer conflates those previous struggles against the Assyrians and Babylonians, which ended in disaster when they failed to yield in obedience to God and continued to worship false gods. The inspired writer's warning is not to make the same mistake.
Judith promises her neighbors that she will deliver the town from its enemies, and she enters the enemy camp, pretending to sympathize with General Holofernes's cause. She wins his trust by telling the general that the Jews have sinned against their God and therefore deserve defeat.
Taken in by her beauty, Holofernes repeatedly invites Judith to his banquet table. However, she refuses until he finally invites her to bring her own ritually acceptable food to dine with him alone. When he passes out from too much wine, Judith beheads him and walks home with his head in her food bag. When her people discover that the foreign enemy is leaderless, they rout the panicked army and save their town. The Jews, encouraged by their resistance, rise up against the foreigners and defeat them.
Historical Outline:
1. The Assyrians invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In 721 BC, Samaria, Israel's capital city, was captured, and the Israelites were deported to Assyrian territory (2 Kings 177:5-6).
2. In 701 BC, King Sennacherib came against all the fortified towns of Judah and captured them. Finally, he besieged Jerusalem. God saved Jerusalem by striking the Assyrian camp with a plague that killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, where he was assassinated by two of his sons. His son Esarhaddon succeeded him (2 Kings 18:13-16; 19:35-37; 2 Chronicles 32).
3. The Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians attacked the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC. The city was destroyed and never rebuilt. The Babylonian army and its allies moved on to conquer the entire region.
4. In 587/6 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon burned Jerusalem and the Temple of Yahweh to the ground and deported the survivors to Babylon (2 Kings 25:8-21).
5. The Persians conquered Babylon, absorbing it into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC. King Cyrus of Persia issued a proclamation in 538 BC allowing all peoples who had been conquered and displaced by the Babylonians and Assyrians to return to their homelands. He also promised to help the Jews rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
6 Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonian Greece (born in 356 BC), began a conquest that stretched from Greece to India, creating one of the largest empires in history, spreading across three continents.
7. When Alexander died in 323 BC, his generals divided his kingdom, with Ptolemy taking Egypt and Seleucus I Nicator taking the eastern provinces, both founding Hellenistic Greek states. Seleucus controlled the eastern provinces, including Syria, Mesopotamia, and parts of Anatolia.
8. Greek-Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC) invaded Judah, hoping to force them to adopt worship of the Greek gods. He outlawed Jewish religious practices, desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by installing pagan altars and plundering sacred vessels to fund his campaign (1 Maccabees 1:41/43-64/67). These actions led to the Maccabean Revolt (1 Maccabees 2:15-28), victory over the Syrians, the purification and rededication of the Jerusalem Temple (celebrated during Hanukkah), and, finally, after years of struggle, independence for Judah/Israel under the Jewish Hasmonean rulers.
Emerging from the Maccabean Revolt against Syria, the family of the Jewish priest Mattathias, known as the Hasmoneans, ruled Judea from c. 141 BC to 37 BC. They established a semi-independent Jewish kingdom that later became a Roman client state. The Maccabean rebel leaders, Mattathias, Judas Maccabeus, and Jonathan Apphus, did not claim the title of king before or after liberating Jerusalem. However, following the death of Jonathan Apphus, his brother Simon Thassi became the first of many Hasmonean kings in 142 BC, named both High Priest and ethnarch, inaugurating the Hasmonean Dynasty.
BC and AD dates: BC dates refer to "Before Christ," and AD stands for "Anno Domini" in Latin, meaning "in the year of our Lord." BC and AD mark years before and after the traditional birth of Jesus Christ. BC refers to all the years before Jesus's birth, counting backward from year 1. For example, 500 BC occurred earlier than 200 BC. AD denotes years after Jesus's birth, counting forward from AD 1. There is no year zero.
The Book of Judith is in two parts:
Part 1: The covenant people are threatened by a powerful enemy who is intent on capturing the holy
city of Jerusalem and destroying their religion and their culture (1:1-7:32).
On the way to Jerusalem, General Holofernes besieges the city of Bethulia, and the people are filled with terror.
Holofernes discusses strategy with his commanders, and one of them, Achior, the Ammonite leader,
warns him about the greatness of Israel's God, enraging the general who then gives him up to the Israelites (5:1-6:21).
The siege of Bethulia becomes so severe that its citizens come to the point of surrendering (7:1-32).
Part 2: Through the bravery of a virtuous widow, Judith of Bethulia, God confounds His covenant people's enemy (8:1-16:25). Judith urges her fellow citizens not to surrender and formulates a plan to destroy her people's enemy. She prays to God to protect her in her mission to save her people (8:1-9:14). Judith goes to the enemy camp, where, through her beauty and bravery, she gains access to General Holofernes. After a banquet, when the general is in a drunken stupor, Judith cuts off his head, which she brings to Bethulia (10:1-13:20). Achior the Ammonite is given refuge by the Israelites. When he sees how Israel's God has defeated their enemy, he confesses his faith in the God of Israel and becomes a member of the covenant people (14:1-10). The enemy's army disintegrates (14:11-15:7). Judith goes to Jerusalem with the people, dedicates her share of the booty to God, and then returns to Bethulia to spend the rest of her life, honored and esteemed by her fellow citizens (15:8-16:25).
| Biblical Period | The Revolt of the Maccabees | ||||
| Covenant | The Sinai Covenant & the Davidic Covenant | ||||
| Focus | A powerful enemy confronts the Covenant People | God confounds His enemies through the action of Judith | |||
| Scripture | 1:1------------------------------------------8:1-----------------------------------------------------16:25 | ||||
| Division | The foreign invasion | The siege of Bethulia | Judith and the elders | Judith and General Holofernes | Victory over the enemy |
| Topic | The campaign of Holofernes against the Israelites | Judith's plan to save Bethulia | |||
| The enemy besieges Bethulia | Judith's victory over Holofernes and her people's victory over their enemy | ||||
| Location | The Kingdom of Israel/Judah | ||||
| Time | c. 2nd century BC | ||||
| Michal E. Hunt Copyright © 2026 | |||||
The Book of Judith and its heroine are not mentioned in the New Testament, but there is an allusion to Judith in the Gospel of Luke 1:42. In that verse, Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist, addresses the Virgin Mary with the greeting "Blessed are you among women." It is the same greeting Uzziah makes to Judith in Judith 13:18. Because of this expression and Judith's other qualities stressed in the text, the Church Fathers saw Judith as a type of Mary, as the Catechism 489 records: "... throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared' for that of Mary." And, in the Divine Office, some passages which extol Judith are applied to the Blessed Virgin (cf. 13:18-20, 15:9).
THE BOOK OF JUDITH
LESSON 1
St. Paul wrote, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:27-28 NABRE). The Book of Judith is a story of the triumph of God's faithful, embattled citizens of Judah/Israel over the forces of evil. The message is that ultimate victory does not come from human strength but through the power of God. He has the power to deliver His faithful people. In this case, God used the beauty of a valiant woman.
The name "Judith" likely means "Jewess." Judith in the story personifies the true daughter of Judah/Israel. In both the Book of Judith and the Book of Esther, the Jewish nation is saved by a woman of faith. The fervent nationalism of the book is tempered by its openness to Gentiles: the pagan Achior recognizes the power of the God and protector of the Jews. The book may have been written about 150 BC, but the main characters are unknown in any records, and the author's strange use of both geography and history adds to the confusion over its date and origins. The Biblical translation is the New Jerusalem Bible.
I: THE CAMPAIGN OF HOLOFERNES
Judith 1:1-12 ~ Nebuchadnezzar and Arphaxad
1 It was the twelfth year
of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh.
Arphaxad was then reigning over the Medes in Ecbatana. 2 He surrounded this
city with walls of dressed stones three cubits thick and six cubits long,
making the rampart seventy cubits high and fifty cubits wide. 3 At the gates he
placed towers one hundred cubits high and, at the foundations, sixty cubits
wide, 4 the gates themselves being seventy cubits high and forty wide to allow
his forces to march out in a body and his infantry to parade freely. 5 About
this time, King Nebuchadnezzar gave battle to King Arphaxad in the great plain
lying in the territory of Ragae. 6 Supporting him were all the peoples from the
highlands, all from the Euphrates and Tigris and Hydaspes, and those from the
plains who were subject to Arioch, king of the Elymaeans. Thus, many nations
had mustered to take part in the battle of the Cheleoudites. 7 Nebuchadnezzar
king of the Assyrians sent a message to all the inhabitants of Persia, to all
the inhabitants of the western countries, Cilicia, Damascus, Lebanon,
Anti-Lebanon, to all those along the coast, 8 to the peoples of Carmel, Gilead,
Upper Galilee, the great plain of Esdraelon, 9 to the people of Samaria and its
outlying towns, to those beyond Jordan, as far away as Jerusalem, Bethany,
Chelous, Kadesh, the river of Egypt, Tahpanhes, Rameses and the whole territory
of Goshen, 10 beyond Tanis too and Memphis, and to all the inhabitants of Egypt
as far as the frontiers of Ethiopia. 11 But the inhabitants of these countries
ignored the summons of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians and did not rally
to him to make war. They were not afraid of him, since in their view he appeared
isolated. Hence, they sent his ambassadors back with nothing achieved and in
disgrace. 12 Nebuchadnezzar was furious with all these countries. He swore by
his throne and kingdom to take revenge on all the territories of Cilicia,
Damascus, and Syria, of the Moabites and of the Ammonites, of Judaea and Egypt
as far as the limits of the two seas, and to ravage them with the sword.
1:1-3:10 presents the reader with an introduction to King Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, whom the writer refers to as the King of Assyria, a title he never bore. The section continues with the commissioning of his general, Holofernes (2:1-13), and a description of the general's campaigns against the disobedient vassal nations of the west (2:14-3:10).
1 It was the twelfth year
of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh.
The twelfth year was 593 BC. The
year was a significant point in ancient history, marked by political upheavals,
cultural developments, and religious events. In 593 BC, God's holy prophet
Ezekiel began his prophetic ministry in the early years of the first Babylonian
exile (2 Kng 24:10-16). The thirtieth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin
(Jeconiah) of Judah marked the start of Ezekiel's prophetic career (Ezek 1:1-3).
Ezekiel 31:16 includes Israel’s enemies among the fallen empires that will go into oblivion.
Nebuchadnezzar II was the greatest king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 605 to 562 BC. He was the eldest son of King Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who was born c. 630 BC. Nebuchadnezzar's military career began under his father, serving in campaigns against Assyria and Egypt. He achieved prominence by leading the Babylonian army to victory at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC, securing the Babylonian conquest over Neo-Assyria and its territories. Shortly after his victory, his father died, and Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne of Babylon.
In 601 BC, Judah's king, Jehoiakim, had begun to openly challenge Babylonian authority. In 598 BC, Nebuchadnezzar began his assault on the Kingdom of Judah and captured the holy city of Jerusalem in 597 BC. The assault on Jerusalem is recorded in the Bible and in the Babylonian Chronicles (2 Kng 23:36-24:17). The Jewish king appointed by the Babylonians, Zedekiah, agreed to pay tribute to Babylon, which ended the conflict. Zedekiah's reign is dated 598/97-587 BC (2 Kng 24:17-18).
However, in 589 BC, Zedekiah reneged on his agreement to pay tribute; his rebellion was followed by those of the King of Tire and, later in 587 BC, Ammon, Edom, and Moab likewise rebelled. In response to Zedekiah's rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar conquered and destroyed the Kingdom of Judah in 587 BC, with the campaign ending in the summer of 586 BC, resulting in the plunder and destruction of Jerusalem, a permanent end to Judah, and the Babylonian captivity of its citizens (2 Kng 24:18-25:21).
The problem with this passage is that Nebuchadnezzar was never called king of the Assyrians; the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar was 593 BC (as the ancients counted without the concept of a zero-place value); and the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, was destroyed in 612 BC, before Nebuchadnezzar became king. This passage and other obvious historical errors point to the inspired writer conflating history as an example of the other times in the history of the covenant people when their failure to trust in God led to bitter defeats and great suffering. It is highly unlikely that the writer was unfamiliar with Israel's history, since the books of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, among others, thoroughly cover the history of Israel and Judah and were among the Old Testament texts read every Sabbath in synagogue worship.
1b Arphaxad was then reigning over the Medes in Ecbatana.
There is no record of a king
named Arphaxad in any historical documents. The Medes left no documents or
archives. However, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as was
the case with King David, whom historians had long believed was a fictional
character until the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele. This 9th-century BC Aramaic
inscription provided the earliest extra-biblical reference to the "House of
David," thus proving the existence of King David of Israel.
The name Arphaxad (Arpachshad) appears in the list of the descendants of Noah's son Shem (Gen 10:22; 11:10-13). Ecbatana, designated as Arphaxad's capital, was fortified by Deioces c. 700 BC. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Deioces was the founder of a Median state in the 8th century BC. The kingdom of the Medes was founded by Phraortes (675-653 BC). Median king Cyaxares allied himself with the Babylonians and they successfully captured Nineveh, the Assyrian capital (612 BC). Following the fall of Nineveh, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was divided between the Medes and the Babylonians. Cyaxares was succeeded by his son Astyages, who continued to rule from the Median capital of Ecbatana until he was overthrown by Cyrus II the Great of Persia in 550 BC. Media lasted until 550 BC, when King Cyrus conquered Astyages, king of the Medes, not Arphaxad. It is possible that the inspired writer used the name Arphazad (Arpachshad) as the ancestral father of all the Medes. Genesis 10:30 records that his descendants occupied territory extending to the eastern mountains, including Media.
Media was an ancient kingdom in what is today northwest Iran. It came to power in the 7th century BC. Media was allied with Babylon in the overthrow and destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 612 BC and was later absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus II. After Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, he allowed all peoples displaced by the Babylonians, including the people of Judah, to return to their homelands (2 Chron 36:22-23; Ezra 1:2-4).
5 About this time, King
Nebuchadnezzar gave battle to King Arphaxad in the great plain lying in the
territory of Ragae. 6 Supporting him were all the peoples from the highlands,
all from the Euphrates and Tigris and Hydaspes, and those from the plains who
were subject to Arioch, king of the Elymaeans. Thus, many nations had mustered
to take part in the battle of the Cheleoudites.
Arioch is named as king of
the Ellasar, one of the four kings in Genesis 14:1. The name has been found in
the Mari texts but cannot be identified with any known historical ruler. In
Daniel 2:14ff,
Arioch is named as the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's royal guard. Since
there is no mention of Cheleoudites in the historical record, many biblical
scholars and historians suggest that the writer was referring to the Chaldeans,
the Babylonians' allies.
The list of people called upon to assist "Nebuchadnezzar" in verses 7-10 is from the regions, moving counterclockwise from Mesopotamia to the northwest, down to the Mediterranean, and into Egypt. Anti-Lebanon lies between Damascus and Lebanon; the plain of Esdraelon is between Mount Carmel and Gilead. Cities in Egypt are named in verses 9-10. The incorrectly named great king expects the peoples of the nations to come to his aid. However, the people of the West are not moved by his commands. They see him as a lone mortal (1L11), refuse to join him, and turn away his messengers, causing him to fall into a violent rage, swearing to destroy all the nations as far as the two seas (the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf).
Judith 1:13-16 ~The Campaign Against Arphaxad
13 In the seventeenth
year, he gave battle with his whole army to King Arphaxad and in this battle
defeated him. He routed Arphaxad's entire army and all his cavalry and
chariots; 14 he occupied his towns and advanced on Ecbatana; he seized its
towers and plundered its marketplaces, reducing its former magnificence to a
mockery. 15 He later captured Arphaxad in the mountains of Ragae and, thrusting
him through with his spears, destroyed him once and for all. 16 He then retired
with his troops and all who had joined forces with him: a vast horde of armed
men. Then he and his army gave themselves up to carefree feasting for a hundred
and twenty days.
The 17th year of the historical King Nebuchadnezzar's reign was 588 BC, a significant date.2 In 589 BC, Zedekiah refused to pay tribute to Nebuchadnezzar. In response to Zedekiah's uprising, Nebuchadnezzar's army invaded Judah in 588 BC and conquered and destroyed the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. The campaign, which probably ended in the summer of 586 BC, resulted in the plunder and destruction of the city of Jerusalem, a permanent end to Judah, and the ;beginning of the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews were captured and deported to Babylonia.
The chapter ends with 120 days of feasting in celebration before the campaign in the West begins. However, as mentioned earlier, the Medes were allies of the Babylonians, not enemies, and were finally defeated by Persian King Cyrus II in 539 BC.
Once again, the writer has combined historical events and people, using a fictional king who is a combination of the Assyrian kings and the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar. Perhaps the message is that all Israel's historical enemies are motivated by King Satan.
Endnotes:
1. Reign of Nebuchadnezzar II
was born in circa 634 BC., and became king when he was 29 years old. He conquered
Assyria in 605 BC, conquered Jerusalem in 587/6 BC, and died in 562 BC.
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2. The years of his reign and
dates mentioned in the Book of Judith:
605 Accession year
604 year 1
603 year 2
602 year 3
601 year 4
600 year 5
599 year 6
598 year 7
597 year 8
596 year 9
595 year 10
594 year 11
593 year 12 (Judith 1:1)
592 year 13
591 year 14
590 year 15
589 year 16
588 year 17 (Judith 1:13)
587 year 18 (Judith 2:1)
586 year 19
585 year 20
562 death of Nebuchadnezzar
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