The Book of Judith

Judith is the story of a besieged city, a people about to surrender, and a widow who would not let them put God on a timetable. It ends in a canticle the Church still sings at Lauds. Below we give the traditional answers on author and date, summarise the book part by part, and show why the liturgy applies Judith's praises to the Blessed Virgin.

Author: the traditional view

The book does not name its author. The Douay-Rheims, in its introduction, gives the traditional view: "The sacred writer of this Book is generally believed to be the high priest Eliachim (called also Joachim)." He is the high priest who orders the defence of the mountain passes in Judith 4 and who comes from Jerusalem to bless Judith in Judith 15. The Church has defined nothing about the human author; she has defined that the book is sacred and canonical, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

The Fathers treated Judith as Scripture from the first century. St Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians around the year 96, holds up "the blessed Judith" as an example of a woman who put herself in danger for love of her people (First Epistle, 55). Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Tertullian also quote the book. St Paul's warning to the Corinthians against murmuring, "as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (1 Corinthians 10:10), takes up the very words of Judith 8:24–25, where those who murmured against the Lord "were destroyed by the destroyer."

Date and historical setting

The Douay introduction puts the events "most probably" in the days of that high priest, "in the reign of Manasses, after his repentance and return from captivity." That captivity and repentance are told in 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 33. This would place the story in the seventh century before Christ. Challoner's note on Judith 1 agrees: the "Nabuchodonosor" of the book is "not the king of Babylon, who took and destroyed Jerusalem, but another of the same name, who reigned in Ninive," a contemporary of Manasses king of Juda. The closing verses, which speak of peace "many years after her death" and of the feast kept "until this day," show the book was finished some time after the events.

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia admits that the names, dates and places raise real difficulties. Many arise from the state of the text, for St Jerome found his manuscripts differed widely; Calmet and Vigouroux answered them in detail, Vigouroux identifying the king with Assurbanipal, under whom Manasses was taken captive. Many modern scholars date the composition to the second century before Christ, in the age of the Machabees; we note that view without adopting it.

What is the Book of Judith about? A summary

The Assyrian threat (chapters 1–3)

Chapters 1–3 open with Nabuchodonosor, king of the Assyrians in Ninive, defeating Arphaxad king of the Medes. The western nations refuse to join him, and he swears revenge. In Judith 2 he sends his general Holofernes west with a vast army that "covered the face of the earth, like locusts." Cities submit and even welcome him with garlands, but Holofernes destroys their gods anyway. As Judith 3 puts it, the king had commanded "that he only might be called God."

Israel prepares; Achior's witness (chapters 4–7)

In chapters 4–7 Israel guards the passes. The priests put on haircloth and the whole people fasts and prays, because the high priest promises that God will hear them "if you continue with perseverance in fastings and prayers." In Judith 5 Achior, captain of the Ammonites, tells Holofernes the history of the Hebrews. They are unconquerable while they serve their God, and are given over to their enemies only when they sin. For this answer, Judith 6 tells how Holofernes has Achior bound and left near Bethulia to die with the Israelites. In Judith 7 Holofernes besieges the city and cuts off its water; after twenty days the cisterns fail, the people demand surrender, and Ozias, the ruler of the city, promises to give it up if no help comes within five days.

Judith's rebuke and her prayer (chapters 8–9)

Judith now appears in Judith 8. She has been a widow three years and six months; she lives in a private chamber at the top of her house, wears haircloth and "fasted all the days of her life, except the sabbaths, and new moons, and the feasts of the house of Israel." She summons the elders and rebukes them: "And who are you that tempt the Lord? … You have set a time for the mercy of the Lord." She reminds them that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses were all proved by many tribulations. In Judith 9 she lies prostrate in ashes and prays one of the great prayers of the Old Testament, asking that the proud enemy may "fall by the hand of a woman" (9:15).

In the camp of Holofernes (chapters 10–13)

In chapters 10–13 Judith takes off her widow's garments and puts on her finest clothes. The text says expressly that "the Lord also gave her more beauty: because all this dressing up did not proceed from sensuality, but from virtue" (10:4). She goes down to the Assyrian camp with her maid. Holofernes is taken with her at once. In Judith 12 she refuses his food and eats only what she has brought, and each night she goes out to the valley to pray.

On the fourth day he makes a supper for his servants, meaning to seduce her, and drinks himself senseless. In Judith 13, alone in his tent, she prays, "Strengthen me, O Lord God, at this hour," and cuts off his head with his own sword. She returns to Bethulia with the head, untouched: "the Lord hath not suffered me his handmaid to be defiled."

Victory, canticle and holy death (chapters 14–16)

In chapters 14–16 the head is hung on the walls and the Israelites go out to attack. Achior believes in the God of Israel and joins His people. When the Assyrians find their general headless they panic, and in Judith 15 they flee and are pursued. The high priest Joachim comes from Jerusalem to bless Judith. In Judith 16 she sings her canticle of thanksgiving and dedicates the spoils to God in the Temple. She then returns to Bethulia, where she lives in chastity to the age of a hundred and five, and is mourned for seven days.

Themes and the Catholic reading

Prayer and fasting overcome armies. The book's lesson is the one Eliachim gives in Judith 4: Moses overcame Amalec "not by fighting with the sword, but by holy prayers" (4:12; see Exodus 17). Judith fasts, prays in haircloth and ashes, prays before the deed and gives thanks after it. St Ambrose, in his book On Elias and Fasting (ch. 9), says she went out "in the harness of this abstinence," and "the fast of one woman overthrew the countless armies of the Assyrians"; he sets beside her Esther, who "became fairer by fasting." The Roman Breviary reads this passage in the second nocturn of Matins on the fourth Sunday of September, the day the book is begun. It is the Church's own commentary on what God says about fasting.

Trust without dictating terms to God. Judith rebukes the elders for setting God a deadline, and gives it its true name: to tempt the Lord (8:11). God's scourges, she says, come "for our amendment, and not for our destruction" (8:27).

Chastity and widowhood. The high priest's blessing gives the reason for her strength: "because thou hast loved chastity, and after thy husband hast not known any other: therefore also the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee" (15:11). St Jerome, in his preface, calls her an example of chastity for men as well as women.

Her words to Holofernes. Readers ask whether Judith lied. Challoner answers in his note on 10:12. Some things she says "seem hard to reconcile with truth," but "all that is related in scripture of the servants of God is not approved by the scripture; and even the saints in their good enterprises may sometimes slip into venial sins." What Scripture praises is her faith, her purity and her courage.

Judith, figure of Our Lady. The Church's liturgy reads Judith as a type of the Blessed Virgin. Like Jahel, who pierced the temples of Sisara in Judges 4, Judith strikes the head of the enemy of God's people, recalling the promise of Genesis 3:15, "she shall crush thy head." Ozias's words, "Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth" (13:23), are echoed by St Elizabeth in Luke 1:42 and in every Hail Mary. The Missal sets those words, with "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem," on the lips of the Church for the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Judith beheaded one tyrant. Mary, preserved from all sin, crushed the serpent himself.

Famous verses from Judith

• Judith 8:11–13, "And who are you that tempt the Lord? … You have set a time for the mercy of the Lord, and you have appointed him a day, according to your pleasure." Read it in Judith 8.
• Judith 9:16, "The prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee," from her prayer in Judith 9.
• Judith 13:20, "His angel hath been my keeper both going hence, and abiding there, and returning from thence hither," her witness on her return in Judith 13, dear to all who honour the guardian angels.
• Judith 13:23, "Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth."
• Judith 15:10, "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people," in Judith 15.
• Judith 16:2–3, "Begin ye to the Lord with timbrels, sing ye to the Lord with cymbals … The Lord putteth an end to wars, the Lord is his name," the opening of her canticle in Judith 16, which stands beside the song of Moses in Exodus 15.

Judith in the canon and in the liturgy

Judith is one of the seven deuterocanonical books, with Tobias (Tobit), Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch and the two books of Machabees. It stands in the historical books between Tobias and Esther, another deliverance of Israel by a woman's fasting and courage (see Queen Esther in the Bible). The book is not in the Hebrew Bible, but it was in the Greek Septuagint the Apostles used. The Council of Rome under Pope Damasus (382) and the African councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) list it among the sacred books, and St Augustine does the same (On Christian Doctrine II, 8).

St Jerome followed the Hebrew canon in theory but translated Judith "because the Synod of Nicaea is said to have accounted it as Sacred Scripture," working, he says, from a Chaldaic text in a single night (Preface to Judith). The Council of Florence (1442) confirmed the canon, and the Council of Trent (Session IV, 8 April 1546) defined it, naming "Tobias, Judith, Esther" and anathematising anyone who does not receive these books "entire with all their parts" as sacred and canonical.

The Douay-Rheims follows the Latin Vulgate, whose text differs from the longer Greek: the Catholic Encyclopedia counts at least eighty-four more verses in the Greek, and the verse numbers do not match.

In the 1962 Missal the Epistle of the Assumption (15 August) is Judith 13:22–25 and 15:10. The same lesson (13:22–25) is read for the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady on 15 September. The Gradual of the Immaculate Conception (8 December) is Judith 13:23 and 15:10. In the Breviary the book is read at Matins in the fourth week of September, and the canticle of Judith, "Let us sing a hymn to the Lord" (16:15 ff.), is sung at Wednesday Lauds outside the penitential seasons.

How to read the Book of Judith

Read it in two or three sittings: chapters 1–7 are slow and military, but they show how hopeless things are before Judith appears in chapter 8. Pray her prayer in chapter 9 slowly and read the canticle of chapter 16 aloud. On the chapter pages the Vulgate stands beside the English, so "Tu gloria Jerusalem" can be heard as the Church sings it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote the Book of Judith?

The book does not name its author. The Douay-Rheims introduction gives the traditional view that it was written by the high priest Eliachim, also called Joachim, who appears in chapters 4 and 15. The Church has defined that the book is inspired and canonical, not who its human author was.

When was the Book of Judith written?

Tradition, as given in the Douay-Rheims, places the events in the reign of Manasses king of Juda, after his return from captivity, in the seventh century before Christ. The book was written down some time after the events, since it speaks of the peace that lasted many years after Judith's death. Many modern scholars date its writing to the second century before Christ instead.

Is the Book of Judith in the Catholic Bible?

Yes. Judith is a canonical book of the Catholic Old Testament, with sixteen chapters, placed between Tobias and Esther. The Councils of Hippo and Carthage listed it at the end of the fourth century, and the Council of Trent defined it as sacred Scripture in 1546. You can read it chapter by chapter in the Douay-Rheims and the Vulgate.

Why was the Book of Judith removed from the Bible?

The Catholic Church never removed it. The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century accepted only the books of the Hebrew canon and moved Judith, with the other deuterocanonical books, into a separate "Apocrypha." Later Protestant printings dropped that section, so Judith is missing from most Protestant Bibles. The early Church read it as Scripture, and the Church defined its canonicity at Trent. See The Deuterocanonical Books.

Is the Book of Judith in the King James Bible?

The 1611 King James Version printed Judith among the Apocrypha, a section between the Testaments that was not treated as Scripture. Most later editions of the KJV leave that section out. The Douay-Rheims, the traditional Catholic English Bible, prints Judith as part of the Old Testament.

Is the Book of Judith true?

The Fathers always read Judith as history, and the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia says that Catholics, with very few exceptions, accept it as a narrative of facts. It also admits real difficulties in the names and dates, partly because of the state of the text. The Pontifical Biblical Commission (23 June 1905) taught that books presented as history are not to be read as fiction unless it is proved by solid arguments that the sacred writer did not mean to write true history.

How many chapters are in the Book of Judith?

The Book of Judith has sixteen chapters in the Latin Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims. The Greek text is longer, and its verse numbering differs from the Vulgate's in several places, so references from other Bibles may not match exactly.

Read the whole Book of Judith verse by verse, in Latin and in English, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. Holy Scripture, Douay-Rheims (Challoner), with its introduction to Judith and notes on 1:5 and 10:12; Latin Vulgate. St Jerome, Preface to the Book of Judith. St Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 55. St Ambrose, De Elia et jejunio, ch. 9 (Roman Breviary, Matins, fourth week of September). St Augustine, De doctrina christiana, II, 8. Councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393) and Carthage (397); Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (1442); Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree on the Canonical Scriptures (1546). Pontifical Biblical Commission, response on the historical narratives of Scripture (23 June 1905). Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "Book of Judith." Roman Missal (1962): Assumption, Immaculate Conception, Seven Sorrows. Roman Breviary (1962): Lauds of Wednesday, canticle of Judith.