Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Wiles, Wisdom and Beauty of Judith

I wrote the following piece under the topic, On Being a Woman, in 2009 for the Summer Writing Group in Muskoka.

Judith from the Apocrypha was a Hebrew woman after whom I was named. She was a devout woman, wise and beautiful, and not beyond using her attributes and wiles in order to stand up for what was right and to help her country. I would hope that I would be like her, if need arose. This is her story.

Judith lived in Bethulia, an Israelite town. Her husband had died from sunstroke while working in the fields and had left her a rich woman. She lived on her estate and after her husband’s death she lived in mourning, fasting and praying in a room she had built on the roof of her house. She feasted only on the Sabbath and on special Jewish holy days.

It was in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar and, like Hitler in our own day, he wanted to rule the world. The town of Bethulia was under siege by the troops of Commander Holophernes and the town citizens were running out of food and water and many were dying. The people wanted to surrender to the enemy in order to save themselves from dying but the officials persuaded them to wait five more days while they came up with a plan or until God showed them favour and saved them.

When Judith heard about this she sent for the magistrates to come to her estate and when they appeared she told them that they were wrong to bargain with God recounting all that God had done for them in the past and would do for them again, if the time was right. They asked her to pray to God to send rain to fill the cisterns so that the people would not die from lack of water. She told them that she would to more than that for she had a plan that would deliver Israel from their enemies and that she could fulfil this plan before the five days were up. All the officials had to do was to not ask her any questions and to open the gates to let her and her maid out of the city at midnight.

Judith then put off her widow’s weeds and dressed herself in her fine clothes and jewelery; she made her face look beautiful “so as to catch the eye of any man who might see her.” She and her maid left Bethulia with provisions of wine and food, which her maid carried in a bag. As they approached the enemy camp they were captured and questioned as to what they were doing. Judith told them that they were running away from her people because she didn’t agree with what they were doing. She told them that she had reliable information to give to their commander so that they could gain command of the hill country without losing any of their men. Holophernes’ men were so overwhelmed by her beauty that they took her to their commander at once.

To make a long story short, Holophernes was taken in by her story. The narrative goes, “They were amazed at her wisdom and beauty.” For the next three days she bided her time and set up the basis for her plan. Each night, with the permission of Holophernes, she and her maid went out of the camp, taking the bag of provisions with them, to purify themselves and pray to God. On the fourth night, Judith was invited into the inner tent of Holophernes where they ate and drank together. Holophernes drank so much that he fell down on his bed, dead drunk.

Judith then took down Holophernes’ sword and cut off his head and she put the head in the food bag. She and her maid then went into the night as usual taking the bag with them. They hurried and returned to Bethulia calling out, as they approached, for the gates to be opened. They let her in and she presented the head of Holophernes to the officials saying, “The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a woman!” When Holophernes’ men discovered his dead body without its head, they panicked and fled. The Israelites army followed them and slaughtered them.

Judith was highly praised and had many suitors in the years to come but she remained unmarried. She gave her maid her freedom. Judith lived to be 105 years old. And the story goes, “No one dared threaten the Israelites again in Judith’s lifetime, or for a long time after her death.

I believe that my father named me after her and, though the Methodist minister did not want to give me that name at my baptism, that is my name and Judith is my hero.

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