Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Nebuchadnezzar, with his war council approving, sends Holofernes to subjugate the western nations to himself by arms.
Vulgate Text: Judith 2:1-18
1. In the thirteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, on the twenty-second day of the first month, the word was spoken in the house of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians, that he should avenge himself. 2. And he called all the elders, and all his commanders and warriors, and held with them the secret of his counsel: 3. and he said that his plan was to subjugate all the earth to his empire. 4. When this proposal had pleased everyone, King Nebuchadnezzar called Holofernes the chief of his army, 5. and said to him: Go forth against every kingdom of the West, and especially against those who despised my authority. 6. Your eye shall not spare any kingdom, and every fortified city you shall subjugate to me. 7. Then Holofernes called the commanders and magistrates of the Assyrian forces, and numbered the men for the expedition, as the king commanded him, one hundred twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand mounted archers. 8. And he sent ahead of his whole expedition an innumerable multitude of camels with supplies sufficient for the armies in abundance, and also herds of oxen and flocks of sheep without number. 9. He ordered grain from all Syria to be prepared for his passage. 10. And he took from the king's house a very great quantity of gold and silver. 11. And he set forth, he and his whole army with chariots, and horsemen, and archers, who covered the face of the earth like locusts. 12. And when he had passed through the borders of the Assyrians, he came to the great mountains of Ange, which are to the left of Cilicia, and he ascended all their strongholds and captured every fortification. 13. He stormed the most famous city of Melothi, and plundered all the sons of Tarshish, and the sons of Ishmael, who were before the desert, and to the south of the land of Chellon. 14. And he crossed the Euphrates, and came into Mesopotamia: and broke all the lofty cities that were there, from the torrent of Mambre until one reaches the sea: 15. and he occupied its borders from Cilicia to the borders of Japheth, which are to the south. 16. And he carried away all the sons of Midian, and plundered all their wealth, and killed all who resisted him by the edge of the sword. 17. And after this he descended into the plains of Damascus in the days of harvest, and burned all the crops, and had all the trees and vineyards cut down: 18. and the fear of him fell upon all the inhabitants of the land.
Verse 1: In the Thirteenth Year of Nebuchadnezzar
1. In the thirteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. — The Greek has the eighteenth year. If you wish to reconcile these, say that the thirteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar was the eighteenth from the beginning of the reign of Arphaxad, his rival and enemy.
Verse 2: He Held With Them the Secret
2. HE HELD WITH THEM THE SECRET (that is, the private or hidden) OF HIS COUNSEL. — For the counsels of kings, especially about subjugating other kings and nations, are secret and hidden.
Verse 4: Holofernes the Chief of His Army
4. HOLOFERNES THE CHIEF OF HIS ARMY. — You ask: Who was Holofernes, and of what character and stature? I answer first: Cedrenus says he was a Persian. For the name seems Persian, just as Persian names are Tisaphernes, Artaphernes, Intaphernes, although among the Assyrians, Armenians and Cappadocians, as Serarius attests in chapter I, question IV, and in chapter II, question I, there are also those named Holofernes. If he was a Persian, Nebuchadnezzar chose a Persian commander so that the Persians, already made contemptible by the defeat received from the Greeks under Xerxes, might be attracted to his side, as indeed he did. Hence in the last chapter, verse 12, it is said: 'The Persians shuddered at her constancy, and the Medes at her boldness, namely Judith's': for after Arphaxad and the Medes had already been subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, many Medes and Persians, neighbors of the Medes, had enrolled in his army.
Second, Holofernes was the commander of Nebuchadnezzar's army, and therefore second to him, as the Greek text says: just as Joseph was second to Pharaoh, Haman to Ahasuerus, Hephaestion to Alexander; hence Zonaras calls Holofernes the Arch-satrap. Tertullian, book I Against Marcion, chapter VII, and St. Augustine, in the Appendix, sermon 66, call him king, because he had very ample power and almost royal resources. In a similar way Joseph, next after Pharaoh, is called by Josephus and Philo in Eusebius, book IX of the Preparation for the Gospel, σκηπτούχος, that is, scepter-bearer, which means king: for the scepter is the insignia of a king.
Third, Francis of Meyronnes asserts that Holofernes was the son of Ahasuerus and Esther; but everyone refutes this as novel and unheard of.
Fourth, Pagninus in the Hebrew Names says that Holofernes, according to Greek etymology, is called as if ὅλος δός: for ὅλος means 'whole' and φερνή means 'dowry'; there are also those who think it is composed from Hebrew and Chaldean, and interpret it as 'mighty leader.' For parnas in Chaldean means prefect or leader. So says Pagninus. Hence the names of illustrious Persian commanders are Phanaspes, Pharnuches, Pharnabas.
Fifth, as to character, Holofernes was similar to Nebuchadnezzar in pride and arrogance, as well as in extravagance and luxury, and therefore was defeated and killed by Judith, as will be clear from what follows. The Greek adds that Nebuchadnezzar said to Holofernes that he would follow with all his forces: 'I will go forth, he says, in my fury against them, and I will cover all the earth with the feet of my power,' etc.
Verse 5: Go Forth Against Every Kingdom of the West
5. AND HE SAID TO HIM: GO FORTH AGAINST EVERY KINGDOM OF THE WEST. — The Greek narrates this royal command more fully, and says: 'Thus says the great King, Lord of all the earth: Behold you will go forth from my presence, and you will take with you men who trust in their own strength, foot soldiers numbering one hundred twenty thousand, and a multitude of horses with their riders; a multitude, I say, of twelve myriads, that is one hundred twenty thousand, and you will go forth to meet, or to battle against, all the land that is to the west, because they have not obeyed the word of my mouth, and you will announce to them that they should prepare land and water, because I will go forth in my fury against them, and I will cover all the face of the earth with the feet of my army, and I will give them over to plundering, and their wounded will fill the valleys and torrents. The river also, overflowing with their dead, will be filled: and at last I will drive their captivity to the ends of all the earth. But you going forth will secure all their borders for me, and they themselves will surrender to you and you will reserve them for me for the day of their punishment. Against those who are rebellious and disobedient, your eye will not spare from delivering them in all your land to slaughter and plundering; because I live, and by the strength of my kingdom, what I have spoken, I will also accomplish by my hand. And you will not transgress even a single one of the words of your Lord, but you will accomplish and complete as I have commanded you: and you will not hesitate to do these things.'
Note in these words of the King the phrase 'you will announce to them that they should prepare land and water for me,' by which is signified the ancient Persian custom. When they wished to subjugate some nation and demanded that it surrender to the Persians, they required of it land and water, as a symbol of servitude. For these things are necessary for human life. Hence Aristotle, book II of the Rhetoric: 'To offer land and water, he says, is to be a slave.' Hence when Darius Hystaspes demanded land and water from the Spartans as a sign of surrender, the Spartans threw his ambassadors into a well, telling them to draw land and water from there to bring to Darius, as Herodotus narrates, book VII. Hence Xerxes son of Darius did not dare to send ambassadors to the Spartans to demand land and water from them, says St. Jerome, book VIII, and Diodorus, book XI. Hence Alexander the Great in Curtius, book III, about to fight against Darius Codomannus and the Persians, in his speech to the soldiers accuses this arrogance of Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes, so that they might remember they were fighting against the Persians, who were accustomed to demand land and water: and so from those who submitted to them, they left neither the draught of springs nor food, the fruits of the earth. Again Herodotus, book IV, narrates that Darius Hystaspes demanded land and water from Idanthyrsus the Scythian leader. And when he sent 'a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows,' Darius's opinion was 'that the Scythians were surrendering themselves and their land and water,' because 'the mouse' is born in the earth and lives on the same produce as men; 'the frog' is born in water; 'the bird' is similar to a horse; and by giving 'arrows' they were surrendering their own strength.
Verse 7: Twelve Thousand Mounted Archers
7. AND TWELVE THOUSAND MOUNTED ARCHERS. — The Greek has 120,000, as we have already heard: where there seems to be an error in the number, and the zero should be deleted, so that 12,000 remain, as our text has. For who ever led so many thousands of cavalry into battle?
Indeed Darius led against Alexander only 44,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, says Curtius, book IV, unless someone says that the mounted archers here were 12,000, while the rest of the cavalry armed with lances, sarissas, battleaxes, etc., numbered 108,000, so that joining both they made 120,000. Perhaps in the Greek, removing 'hundred,' it should read 20,000, of which 12,000 were archers, as the Greek text also has; the rest of another armament.
Verse 12: He Came to the Great Mountains of Ange
12. HE CAME TO THE GREAT MOUNTAINS OF ANGE, WHICH ARE TO THE LEFT OF CILICIA. — Ange then was the name of the mountains which were to the left of Cilicia, from which Philtes Angaeus was born, about whom Curtius speaks, book III; in Herodotus book VII, it is called the great mountain Rangaeus, and in other authors.
13. He stormed (took by assault) the most famous city (most renowned, and most celebrated for its wealth and strength) of Melothi ('Melothi' in Hebrew means the same as fullness, namely of wealth and people: for such was Melothi) and plundered all the sons of Tarshish. — These are those of whom it is said, II Maccabees IV, 30: 'It happened that the people of Tarsus and Mallus raised a sedition, because they had been given as a gift to the king's concubine Antiochis.' For Tarshish was a grandson of Japheth, Genesis X, from whom the Mediterranean Sea and Cilicia its border were named, and from this any sea was called Tarshish, as I said on Isaiah II, 16.
14. Mambre. — The Greek has Arbonai.
15. To the borders of Japheth, — Joppa is meant, says Serarius, which is still today called Jaffa, and by the Turks Zapha: for, as Pliny says, book V, chapter XIII: 'The village of Joppa of the Phoenicians is older than the inundation of the lands,' as they report.
Verse 16: And He Carried Away
16. AND HE CARRIED AWAY. — In Greek ἐκύκλωσε, that is, he surrounded, encircled.
Verse 17: And He Burned All the Crops
17. AND HE BURNED ALL THE CROPS. — The Greek has: He consumed the flocks and herds, plundered the cities, ravaged the fields, and struck down all their young men by the edge of the sword.