Bible: Judith, Exodus, and Genesis

Bible: Judith, Exodus, And Genesis

The two chapters from the Bible, Genesis 14, Exodus 17 and apocryphal Book of Judith represent sequences of wars, all of which are considered legendary. The wars described share a few very important elements. In the first place, all of them involve the people of Israel which is engaged in a conflict with other peoples of the time such as those of Sodom, Gomorrah, Salem and a few others in Genesis, or of Holofernes in the Book of Judith. Also, the three fragments share a similar pattern of the action: the people of Israel sins against God and doubts his existence, is punished first but then delivered with the help of their chosen leaders. These leaders, namely Abram in Genesis 14, Moses in Exodus 17 and Judith, the female leader of the Book of Judith, are prophets and hold communication with God, who shows them the way to save the people of Israel from the enemies. The pattern expressed by the unconventional wars depicted in the three Biblical fragments has very important significance from a religious point-of-view, as it expresses the reiteration of God's covenant to His people, and His promise of deliverance from the hands of the enemies.

Moreover, all the three excerpts reveal one and the same important aspect of divinity: the ways of God are mysterious and cannot be comprehended by the vain human mind. Thus, the three wars seem unconventional descriptions, since all the victories are gained with the help of divine intervention, and not with that of the human forces.

Judith the female leader and widow of Manasseh, is the one that best expresses the idea of God's mysterious ways to his people, in her address to the frightened Israel:

You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart, nor find out what a man is thinking; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? No, my brethren, do not provoke the Lord our God to anger."(Judith 8.14)

As she explains, God cannot be comprehended, and it is in vain that they plead with Him, trying to convince Him as they would convince a man. This is why the strategies and plans that would be used to fight against the enemies are unusual, as they are directed and influenced by God' will. Also, in all the three fragments, the people of Israel sin by doubting God and complaining about their fate. In Judith, when they are overwhelmed by enemies the people lose hope of salvation:

The people of Israel cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them and there was no way of escape from them. The whole Assyrian army, their infantry, chariots, and cavalry, surrounded them for thirty-four days, until all the vessels of water belonging to every inhabitant of Bethulia were empty."(Judith 7.19-20)

In Exodus 17 the example that God sets is even more obvious: the people complain about thirst to Moses and already lose faith when they do not have the water:

And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?"(Exodus, 17:7)

In Genesis 14 and Exodus 17, the strategies used by Israel in their unconventional wars are all directed through the respective leaders, Abram and Moses. In Genesis 14, the strategy used is not made clear, but we find out that Abram managed to vanquish his enemies and save his brother Lot, with all his armies and goods from their hands. When the king of Sodom tries to tempt Abram in proposing him to take all the goods for himself he says that he has sworn to God not to take anything from him, so that he might not be able to say that he made him rich. The emphasis here is on God's glory, as the only distributor of riches or poverty:

And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.[...]"(Genesis 14. 22-23)

In Exodus 17, there are two miracles: Moses saves the people from dying of thirst by using his rod to smite a rock and produce water, and then saves them again in the confrontation with Amalek. The actual fighters in the battle are Amalek and Joshua, but Moses saves the people in the way God directed him to do: by keeping his hands raised for a whole day:

But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun."(Exodus 17.12)

This strategy is symbolic: Moses points to the heavens, where God abides, to indicate that that is the place where salvation comes from eventually, irrespectively of what people do with their own powers on Earth.

The Book of Judith is a very interesting fragment, since a woman is here the protagonist and since she is treated as any of the male leaders and prophets in the Bible, that is, by listing her ancestors in the male line when she is introduced in chapter eight. Also, Deborah Sawyer observes," irony is the key to the book," that is, irony is the most important narrative technique used. The dialogues are comical in their double meanings and the irony and ridicule are used to glorify God:

The narrative provides ample entertainment by giving Holofernes plenty of dialogue that resounds with double entendres, ridiculing his vanity and masculinity. This purpose, localized in the story's characters, coexists with the overriding intent to glorify God."(Sawyer, 48)