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Atlas of Saints

Judith

Chapter 13 · Douay–Rheims / Challoner

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Chapter XIII · Location 13 of 16

Chapter 13 · Open to read

From Judith · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)

What sequence and claims does Judith Chapter 13 record?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

After the attendants leave, Judith prays, kills the sleeping drunken commander and takes his head and canopy. She and her maid leave as if for prayer, then reach Bethulia, where she displays the head and testifies to God’s protection. The people and Ozias praise her; Achior faints and then reveres her, without his later conversion yet being narrated.

Chapter breakdown

Late at night, the banquet concluded as the intoxicated servants hurried to their lodgings, and Vagao shut the chamber doors and departed. Judith remained alone in the bedchamber with Holofernes, who lay fast asleep upon his bed in an exceedingly drunken state. Judith instructed her maid to stand outside the chamber and keep watch. Standing beside the bed, Judith wept in silent prayer, moving her lips as she begged the Lord God of Israel to strengthen her and look upon the work of her hands, that he might raise up Jerusalem and accomplish what she had purposed through faith in him.

Stepping to the pillar at the head of the bed, Judith unfastened Holofernes's sword that was tied to it. Drawing the blade, she grasped him by the hair of his head and prayed once more for divine strength. She struck twice upon his neck, severed his head, pulled down the canopy from the pillars, and rolled away his headless trunk from the bed. After a short while, she went out and gave the head of Holofernes to her maid, who placed it into her wallet.

The two women left the camp together according to their customary habit, as though departing for prayer. Passing through the encampment and circling the valley, they arrived safely at the gates of Bethulia. From afar, Judith called out to the sentries upon the walls, urging them to open the gates because God was with them and had displayed his power in Israel. Hearing her voice, the watchmen summoned the elders, and the entire populace ran to meet her from the least to the greatest, having abandoned all hope that she would ever return.

Lighting lights, the people gathered around her as Judith ascended a higher place and commanded silence. She exhorted them to praise God, who had not abandoned those who hope in him and had fulfilled his promised mercy by killing the enemy of his people by her hand that very night. She drew the head of Holofernes from the bag and displayed it alongside the canopy in which he had lain drunk, declaring that the Lord had slain him by the hand of a woman. She testified that the angel of the Lord had guarded her during her entire journey, keeping her free from all defilement and sin.

The people adored God and blessed Judith. Ozias, prince of the people of Israel, proclaimed her blessed by the Most High God above all women on earth, praising the Lord who made heaven and earth and had guided her to cut off the head of their chief enemy. He said that her praise would not depart from the mouth of those who remembered God’s power, because she had not spared her life for her country’s distress but prevented their ruin in God’s presence. When Achior was summoned, Judith showed him the severed head of the general who had threatened to pierce his sides with a sword. Overcome with dread, Achior fell on his face and fainted. Upon reviving, he fell at her feet in reverence, proclaiming her blessed in every dwelling of Jacob and declaring that the God of Israel would be magnified among all nations on her account.

The story inside

Opening conditions: After the attendants leave, Judith prays, kills the sleeping drunken commander and takes his head and canopy. Development: She and her maid leave as if for prayer, then reach Bethulia, where she displays the head and testifies to God’s protection. Chapter ending: The people and Ozias praise her; Achior faints and then reveres her, without his later conversion yet being narrated.

Lessons worth keeping

  1. 1
    After the attendants leave, Judith prays, kills the sleeping drunken commander and takes his head and canopy.
  2. 2
    She and her maid leave as if for prayer, then reach Bethulia, where she displays the head and testifies to God’s protection.
  3. 3
    The people and Ozias praise her; Achior faints and then reveres her, without his later conversion yet being narrated.

Test your recall

Which events are narrated, and which statements belong to the named speakers?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

  1. Lines 52682–52685

    Saying: Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that as thou hast promised, thou mayst raise up Jerusalem thy city: and that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by thee.
  2. Lines 52693–52695

    And she struck twice upon his neck, and cut off his head, and took off his canopy from the pillars, and rolled away his headless body.
  3. Lines 52724–52728

    Then she brought forth the head of Holofernes out of the wallet, and shewed it them, saying: Behold the head of Holofernes the general of the army of the Assyrians, and behold his canopy, wherein he lay in his drunkenness, where the Lord our God slew him by the hand of a woman.
  4. Lines 52743–52745

    And Ozias the prince of the people of Israel, said to her: Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth.

Location: chapter 13 of 16 · 81%

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