by
Setting the
Campaign Scene
‘Here’, she
said, ‘is the head of Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, and here is
the mosquito net from his bed, where he lay in a drunken stupor.
The Lord used a
woman to kill him’.
Judith 13:15
Early in
my university thesis:
A Revised
History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
I had
anticipated that (Volume One, p. 8): “Some important
geographical revisions will also be proposed in this thesis”.
One
of these pertained to Bethulia”:
“The most significant of these will be:
‘ASHDOD’,
featuring prominently in Sargon II’s records as a fort leading a western
rebellion against him, usually identified with the coastal Philistine city of that
name (the latter now to be now identified with the ‘Ashdudimmu’, or maritime
Ashdod, of the neo-Assyrian records), will be re-identified with the mighty
Judaean fortress of LACHISH.
‘CONDUIT OF
THE UPPER POOL, WHICH IS ON THE HIGHWAY TO THE FULLER’S FIELD’ (cf. 2 Kings
18:17 & Isaiah 7:3; 36:2), now to be identified as a location situated close
to the Mount of olives, rather than right at the walls of Jerusalem itself.
‘BETHULIA’:
Judith’s home town, to be identified with the northern BETHEL, that Jeroboam II
of Israel had formerly turned into a pagan cult centre (e.g. Amos 7:10-13)”.
Then in Volume Two (“Identification of
Bethulia”, pp. 69-71), I would embrace C. Conder’s identification of Bethulia
with the village of Mithilia (or Mesilieh).
Whilst I am still holding to the first two of
these, I have lately had cause to re-think the location and identification of
Bethulia, about which identification I had written (Volume Two, p. 71): “I
find quite satisfying this site (Mithilia/Meselieh),
which appears to fit Bethulia in regard to
its location, description, name (approximately) and apparent strategic
importance”.
The Book of Judith is, in its present form,
replete with personal and geographical name difficulties, a situation that has
led scholars - particularly in more recent times - to relegate the book to the
level of “pious” or “historical fiction”. As I noted in my Preface (p. x), I
would try to sort things out by locating the drama to a very precise historical
period:
The
full resolution of this complicated matter though, as I see it, will not be
found until Part II, with my
merging of the Book of Judith with the Books of Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah
for the era of Hezekiah (Chapter 2 and
Chapter 3). I have nowhere read where this
particular historical scenario for Judith has been attempted; though, in
retrospect, the C8th BC Hezekian era for the Judith drama, with Sennacherib
ruling in Assyria, now seems to me to be rather obvious.
Be
that as it may, I know of virtually no current historians who even consider the
Book of Judith to be anything other than a ‘pious fiction’, or perhaps
‘historical fiction’, with the emphasis generally on the ‘fiction’ aspect of
this. Thus I feel a strong empathy for the solitary Judith in the midst of
those differently-minded Assyrians (Judith 10:11-13:10).
Earlier in Volume Two (p. 27), I had quoted
C. Moore regarding difficulties that commentators have encountered concerning the
geographical account of the Assyrian campaign:
Moore tells of
some of the problems associated with this particular campaign account: ….
Chaps. 2 and 3
of Judith continue to offer serious errors in fact but of a different kind,
namely, geographical. Holofernes’ entire army marched from Nineveh to northern
Cilicia, a distance of about three hundred miles, in just three
days (2:21), after which they cut their way
through Put and Lud (usually identified by scholars with Libya in Africa, and
Lydia in Asia Minor, respectively …), only to find themselves crossing the
Euphrates River and proceeding west through Mesopotamia
(2:24) before arriving at Cilicia and Japheth, facing Arabia
(2:25)!
Either
something is now missing from the itinerary, or the author knew nothing about
Mesopotamian geography ….
Once
Holofernes reached the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean, his itinerary becomes
more believable even though a number of cities and peoples mentioned are unknown,
e.g. Sur and Okina (2:28) and Geba (3:10). Just exactly what route Holofernes’
army took to get from the coastal cities of Azotus and Ascalon (2:28) to the
place where they could encamp and besiege Bethulia is unknown. The LXX seems to
suggest that Holofernes’ attack on Bethulia came from the north (cf. 4:6; 8:21;
11:14, 19). …
According
to verse 4:4: “So [the Israelites living in Judaea] sent word to every district
of Samaria, and to Kona, Beth-horon, Belmain, and Jericho, and to Choba and
Aesora, and the valley of Salem”. Moore finds this highly problematical also:….
Starting with
chap. 4, the problem shifts from the author’s errors and confusion over
geographical names and locations to the reader’s ignorance and confusion as to
the geographical locations of sites near Bethulia. For instance, of the eight Israelite
places named in 4:4, five are totally unknown, namely, Kona, Belmain, Choba,
Aesora, and the valley of Salem. …
Craven
though, whose purpose will be rather a literary assessment of [the Book of Judith],
has no qualms therefore in dismissing as insignificant the historical and
geographical problems of [the Book of Judith] with which other commentators of
the book have tried to grapple: …. “The Book of Judith simply does not yield
literal or even allegorical data. Instead, its opening details seem to be a
playful manipulation of both historical and geographical facts and inventions”.
Charles C. Torrey will, on the other hand, in his
article back in 1899, “The Site of 'Bethulia'” (JAOS 20,
pp. 160-172), take far more seriously the geographical details. It is this
particular article that actually prompted my re-think of Bethulia. Thus Torrey
wrote, for example (p. 161):
“But in the frequent descriptions with which the writer gives of the region
where the principal action of the story take place, the geographical and
topographical details are introduced in such number and with such consistency
as to show that he is describing localities with which he was personally
familiar. Nor is it difficult to determine, in general, what region he had in
mind. Beyond question, the discomfiture of the ‘Assyrian’ army is represented
as having taken place in the hill country of Samaria, on the direct road from
Jezreel to Jerusalem”.
Two key places for defence were, apparently, “Bethulia and Betomesthaim” facing Esdraelon (or Jezreel). For it was to
these two towns that the high priest Joakim wrote from
Jerusalem (thesis, Volume Two, p. 53):
The High-Priest, Joakim
Instead
of a king to stir up the people, as Hezekiah had done at the commencement of Sennacherib’s
invasion (2 Chronicles 32:2-8), for his Third Campaign, [Judith] 4:6-7 introduces us
to: “The high priest, Joakim, who was in Jerusalem
at the time [who] wrote
to the people of Bethulia and Betomesthaim, which
faces Esdraelon opposite the plain near Dothan, ordering them to seize the
mountain passes, since by them Judaea could be invaded …”.
For more on the high priest, Joakim, see my:
Hezekiah's Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest
and:
Continuing on now with the “Assyrian
Advance on Bethulia” (Volume Two, p.
61), I wrote:
[Judith]
7:1: “The next day Holofernes ordered his whole army, and all the allies who
had joined him, to break camp and to move against Bethulia, and to seize the
passes up into the hill country and make war on the Israelites”. The Assyrian
fighting forces, “170,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, not counting the baggage
and the foot soldiers handling it” (v. 2), now numbered that fateful figure of
180,000 plus. …. “When the Israelites saw their vast numbers, they were greatly
terrified and said to one another, ‘They will now strip clean the whole land;
neither the high mountains nor the valleys nor the hills will bear their
weight’.” (v. 4). One can now fully appreciate the appropriateness of Joel’s ‘locust’
imagery.
[The
Book of Judith] provides the reader with a precise location for the Assyrian
army prior to its assault of the fortified towns of Israel facing Dothan.
·
I give firstly the Douay version of it (7:3):
All these
[Assyrian footmen and cavalry] prepared themselves together to fight against
the children of Israel. And they came by the hillside to the top, which looketh
toward Dothain [Dothan], from the place which is called Belma, unto Chelmon,
which is over against Esdraelon.
·
Next the Greek version, which importantly
mentions Bethulia (v. 3):
They encamped
in the valley near Bethulia, beside the spring, and they spread out in breadth
over Dothan as far as Balbaim and in length from Bethulia to Cyamon, which
faces Esdraelon.
The
combination of the well-known Dothan (var. Dothain)
and Esdraelon in both versions presents no problem, and fixes the area where
the Assyrian army massed. The identification of Bethulia
will be discussed separately, in the next chapter (section: “Identification
of Bethulia”, beginning on p. 69). The only other geographical elements named
are ‘Belma’ (Douay)/ ‘Balbaim’ (Greek); and ‘Chelmon’ (Douay)/ ‘Cyamon’ (Greek).
Charles has, not illogically, linked the first of these names, which he gives
as ‘Belmaim’ (var. Abelmain) … with the ‘Belmaim’ listed in 4:4. …. And he
tells that, in the Syrian version, this appears as ‘Abelmeholah’. …. But both
this location, and “Cyamon, Syr Kadmûn, VL
Chelmona”, he claims to be “unknown”. ….
Leahy
and Simons, on the other hand, have both ventured identifications for these two
locations. And they have each in fact arrived at the same conclusion for
‘Belbaim’ (‘Belma’) … though Simons will reject the identification of ‘Cyamon’
(‘Chelmon’) that we shall now see that Leahy has favoured. Here firstly, then,
is Leahy’s account of it, in which he also connects ‘Belbaim’ with the
‘Balamon’ of 8:3 (pertaining to the burial place of Judith’s husband,
Manasseh): ….
Holofernes had
given orders to break up camp and march against Bethulia. Then, according to
the Gk, the army camped in the valley near Bethulia, and spread itself in
breadth in the direction over against Dothan and on to Belbaim (Balamon of Gk
8:3, Belma of Vg, Jible´am of Jos 17:11, the modern Khirbet Bel´ame), and in
length from Bethulia to Kyamon (Chelmon of Vg, Jokne´am of Jos 12:22, the modern
Tell Qaimun).
Simons
will instead prefer for ‘Cyamon’, modern el-jâmûn. …. Here
is his geographical
assessment
of the final location of the Assyrian army as given in the Greek version: ….
Judith vii 3b
describes the location of BETHULIA more closely. The
clause is easily understandable on the condition that two changes are made,
viz. “breadthwise ‘from’ … DOTHAIM unto
BELBAIM and lengthwise from ‘BELBAIM’
(LXX reads “BETHULIA”. However, the
besieged city itself cannot have been at the extremity of the besieging army)
unto CYAMON which is opposite (the plain of) Esdrelon” or
in terms of modern geography; from tell dôtân unto hirbet bel’ameh and from
hirbet bel’ameh unto el-jâmûn. The disposition of Holofernes’ army thus
described is perfectly comprehensible, if BETHULIA was
situated between the upright sides of a triangle, the top of which was the
twice mentioned site of hirbet bel’ameh, while its base was a line from tell dôtân
to el-jâmûn.
According to
Moore (above), “… of the eight Israelite places named in [Judith] 4:4, five are
totally unknown, namely, Kona, Belmain, Choba, Aesora, and the valley of
Salem”.
But we have just
found that “Belmain”, for instance, may not be “totally unknown”.
Moreover, there
was apparently a northern “Salem” in the region of Shechem (Genesis 33:18 KJV):
“And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is
in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before
the city.”
“It
is certainly a remarkable fact, supporting the King James Version, that about 4
miles East of Shechem (Nablus), there is a village bearing the name Salem”.
The Valley of
Salem deserves far closer attention (see next section, ii), because there is a
Psalm, purportedly pertaining to the time of King Hezekiah and the defeat of
the Assyrians, in which there occurs a reference to “Salem”. Even, according to
M. D. Goulder, “a battle at Salem”: “Selah Psalm 76 is widely seen as a
companion to Psalm 75. ... victory in war, and celebrates the divine
deliverance of Israel in a battle
at Salem near Shechem” (The Psalms of Asaph and the Pentateuch:
Studies in the Psalter, III, p. 86).
Salem Important
“So they sent a
warning to the whole region of Samaria and to the towns of Kona, Beth Horon,
Belmain, Jericho, Choba, and Aesora, and to Salem Valley. They immediately occupied the mountaintops, fortified the villages
on the mountains, and stored up food in preparation for war”.
Judith
4:4-5
Introduction
Previously
we noted that “… there was
apparently a northern “Salem” in the region of Shechem (Genesis 33:18 KJV): “And Jacob came to Shalem, a
city of Shechem …” …. It is certainly
a remarkable fact … that about 4 miles East of Shechem (Nablus), there is a
village bearing the name Salem”.
One
really needs to take seriously what may seem at first like insignificant
geographical clues.
Doing
that very thing was what had enabled Dr. Eva Danelius to re-orient the First Campaign of pharaoh Thutmose III
away from the conventional geographical interpretation of it, in the north, in the
Megiddo region, to a more apt geography and topography for it in the region of
Jerusalem (“ Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”):
“Breasted
identified this defile, the road called "Aruna" in Egyptian records,
with the Wadi 'Ara which connects the Palestine maritime plain with the Valley
of Esdraelon (4). It was this identification which aroused my curiosity, and my
doubt.
If it is
true that "the geography of a country determines the course of its
wars" (44), the frightful defile, and attempts at its crossing by
conquering armies, should have been reported in books of Biblical and/or
post-Biblical history. There is no mention of either. Nor has the Wadi 'Ara
pass ever been considered to be secret, or dangerous”.
This led Dr.
Danelius to a reconstruction of this famous First
Campaign of the pharaoh’s in favour of Dr. I. Velikovsky’s view that it was
the actual biblical event of Shishak king of Egypt’s assault on Jerusalem and
its holy Temple in the 5th year of King Rehoboam of Judah (I Kings
14:25) – but with a far more satisfactory geography for it than Velikovsky’s
awkward attempt to combine the biblical details with the conventional Megiddo
element.
Dr. Danelius
would be able to show that the Aruna road
taken by the Egyptian army fitted the conventional view neither etymologically,
geographically, topologically, nor strategically.
Now I, in my
continuous efforts over the years to make historical and geographical sense of
the Book of Judith, may have taken too casually the reference in Judith 4:4 to
“Salem (Valley)”.
It may turn
out to be just as crucial as was Dr. Danelius’s “Aruna” moment for the
re-interpretation of Thutmose III’s First
Campaign.
Salem or Shalem
The
mysterious “Salem” in the Bible inevitably gets connected with Jerusalem.
SHAVEH, VALLEY OF (shā'vĕ, Heb. shāwēh, a plain).
Also called “the king’s dale”; a place near Salem (i.e., Jerusalem, Ps.76.2), where, after rescuing his nephew Lot, Abraham met the king of
Sodom (Gen.14.17). It is identified by some as the same place where Absalom
erected a memorial to himself (2Sam.18.18).
In
the Psalm referred to here, 76 (Hebrew), or 75 (Douay), the word Shalem (שָׁלֵם) seems to be - in typical Hebrew parallelistic fashion -
juxtaposed with Zion (צִיּוֹן), as if identifying the two (76:3): “In
Salem also is set His tabernacle, and His dwelling-place in Zion”.
But, as we have gleaned from the OT books of Genesis and Judith,
there was apparently also a northern Salem. And indeed some, for example “… the
list of earlier scholars … identified Melchizedek’s Salem with Shechem …” (Studies in the Pentateuch, Volume 41, edited
by John Adney Emerton, p. 53).
The
NT also refers to a place named “Salim”, which some think may have been partly
in the vicinity of Shechem (http://biblehub.com/topical/a/aenon.htm): “[Aenon]
Springs,
a place near Salim where John baptized (John 3:23). It was probably near the upper
source of the Wady Far'ah, an open valley extending from Mount Ebal to the
Jordan. It is full of springs. A place has been found called `Ainun, four miles
north of the springs”.
This - whilst
not according entirely with my previous acceptance of Judith’s “Bethulia” as
Mithilia (much closer to Dothan) - does accord very well, however, with my firm
conviction that the Battle of the Book of Judith had occurred in the north, and
not in the south at Jerusalem.
The
Douay version of the Psalm (there numbered as 75) connects it explicitly to
King Hezekiah (“Ezechias”) and “the Assyrians”, which is precisely where I have
located it historically. Thus:
…. God is known in his church: and exerts
his power in protecting it. It alludes to the slaughter of the Assyrians, in
the days of king Ezechias.
[1]
Unto the end, in praises, a psalm for Asaph: a canticle to the Assyrians. [2] In
Judea God is known: his name is great in Israel. [3] And
his place is in peace: and his abode in Sion: [4]
There hath he broken the powers of bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle.
[5]
Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills.
[6] All
the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep; and all the
men of riches have found nothing in their hands. [7] At
thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, they have all slumbered that mounted on horseback. [8]
Thou art terrible, and who shall resist thee? from that time thy
wrath. [9]
Thou hast caused judgment to be heard from heaven: the earth trembled and was
still, [10]
When God arose in judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.
[8] "From that time":
From the time that thy wrath shall break out.
[11] For the thought of man shall give
praise to thee: and the remainders of the thought shall keep holiday to thee. [12] Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God:
all you that are round about him bring presents. To him that is terrible, [13] Even to him who taketh away the spirit
of princes: to the terrible with the kings of the earth.
‘Bethulia’ probably
not Mithilia
(Mesilieh)
Modern Mithilia,
formerly my choice for the site of Judith’s “Bethulia”,
may not actually
be significant - or strategically important - enough.
In retrospect, I may have been swayed to some
extent in my former choice of Mithilia (or Mesilieh) by the fact that Claude Reignier
Conder, who had thus identified Judith’s site of Bethulia, had appeared to
believe in the reality of the whole thing. For he had written:
“In imagination one might see the stately Judith
walking through the down-trodden corn-fields and shady olive-groves, while on
the rugged hillside above the men of the city “looked after her until she was
gone down the mountain, and till she had passed the valley, and could see her
no more” (Judith x 10)” – C. R. C., ‘Quarterly Statement’, July, 1881.
Those, on the
other hand, who had opted for different sites for “Bethulia”, such as the
strong fort of Sanur, for instance, or for Shechem, did not appear to give the
impression of believing that the Book of Judith was describing a real
historical incident.
For instance
Charles C. Torrey, who favoured Shechem for “Bethulia”, would brush off the
overall story of Judith in the following dismissive fashion (“The Site of 'Bethulia'”,
JAOS 20, 1899, p. 160):
“The author of the story brings into it an unusual
number of geographical and topographical details; names of countries, cities,
and towns, of valleys and brooks. With regard to a part of these
details, especially those having to do with countries or places outside
of Palestine, it can be said at once that they are merely literary adornment,
and are not to be taken seriously”.
And,
a bit further on, Torrey will continue in the same vein: “These are all
just such details as we expect to see employed by a story-teller
who, without being very well informed, wishes to make his tale sound like a
chapter of history …”.
But
could the village of Mithilia, Conder’s choice, be significant enough for the
original site?
Admittedly,
it seemed to fit some of the details of the Book of Judith.
Thus
Conder wrote:
“?Meselieh? A small village, with a detached
portion to the north, and placed on a slope, with a hill to the south, and
surrounded by good olive-groves, with an open valley called W鈊y el Melek (“the King’s Valley’) on the
north. The water-supply is from wells, some of which have an ancient
appearance. They are mainly supplied with rain-water. In 1876 I proposed to
identify the village of Meselieh, or Mithilia, south of Jenin, with the
Bethulia of the Book of Judith, supposing the substitution of M for B, of which
there are occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature. The indications of the
site given in the Apocrypha are tolerably distinct. Bethulia stood on a hill,
but not apparently on the top, which is mentioned separately (Judith vi. 12)
There were springs or wells beneath the town (verse 11), and the houses were
above these (verse 13). The city stood in the hill-country not far from the plain
(verse 11), and apparently near Dothan (Judith iv. 6). The army of Holofernes
was visible when encamped near Dothan (Judith vii. 3, 4), by the spring in the
valley near Bethulia (verses 3-7).’The site usually supposed to represent
Bethulia – namely, the strong village of Sanur – does not fulfill these various
requisites; but the topography of the Book of Judith, as a whole, is so
consistent and easily understood, that it seems that Bethulia was an actual
site. Visiting Mithilia on our way to Shechem? we found a small ruinous village
on the slope of the hill. Beneath it are ancient wells, and above it a rounded
hill-top, commanding a tolerably extensive view. The north-east part of the
great plain, Gilboa, Tabor … and Nazareth, are clearly seen. West of these are
neighbouring hillsides Jenin and Wady Bel’ameh (the Belmaim, probably of the
narrative); but further west Carmel appears behind the ridge of Sheikh Iskander
… and part of the plain of ‘Arrabeh, close to Dothan, is seen.
A broad corn-vale, called “The King’s Valley”,
extends north-west from Meselieh toward Dothan, a distance of only 3 miles.
There is a low shed formed by rising ground between two hills, separating this
valley from the Dothain plain; and at the latter site is the spring beside which,
probably, the Assyrian army is supposed by the old Jewish novelist [sic] to
have encamped. …”.
But, against the choice of both Mithilia
(“Mithilīyeh”) and Sanur (“Ṣānūr”), C. Torrey would write rather
convincingly (op. cit., pp. 162-163):
“… the city which the writer of this story
[Judith] had in mind lay directly in the path of Holofernes, at the head of the
most important pass in the region, through which he must necessarily lead his
army. There is no escape from this conclusion.
This absolutely excludes the two places
which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Ṣānūr
and Mithilīyeh, both
midway between Geba and Genin [presumably Jenin]. Ṣānūr, though a natural
fortress, is perched on a hill west of the road, and “guards no pass
whatsoever” (Robinson, Biblical Researches … iii. 152f.). As for Mithilīyeh,
first suggested by Conder in 1876 (see Survey
of Western Palestine, Memoirs, ii.
156f.), it is even less entitled to consideration, for it lies nearly two miles
east of the caravan track, guarding no pass, and of little or no strategic importance.
Evidently, the attitude, hostile or friendly, of this remote village would be a
matter of indifference to a great invading army on its way to attack Jerusalem.
Its inhabitants, while simply defending themselves at home, certainly could not
have held the fate of Judea in their hands; nor could it have ever occurred to
a writer of such a story as this to represent them as doing so”.
Shechem
The author
reconsiders his former choice for “Bethulia”, of Mithilia,
now in favour of
the more well-known and strategic city of Shechem.
The Jewish Encyclopedia (”Judith, Book Of”) tells
of the appropriateness of Shechem for Judith city of “Bethulia”: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9073-judith-book-of
“…
Identity of Bethulia.
As Torrey
first pointed out, in the "Journal of the American Oriental Society,"
xx. 160-172, there is one city, and only one, which perfectly satisfies all the
above-mentioned requirements, namely, Shechem. A great army, with its
baggage-trains, breaking camp at Geba in the morning (vii. 1), would arrive in
the afternoon at the springs in the broad valley (ib. 3) just under
Shechem. This, moreover, is the city which occupies the all-important pass on
this route, the pass by which "was the entrance into Judea" (iv. 7).
Furthermore, each one of the details of topography, which the writer introduces
in great number, finds its unmistakable counterpart in the surroundings of
Shechem. The valley below the city is on the west side (vii. 18; comp. ib.
verses 13, 20). The "fountain of water in the camp" (xii. 7) is the
modern Bait al-Ma, fifteen minutes from Shechem. The ascent to the city was
through a narrowing valley (xiii. 10; comp. x. 10). Whether the words "for
two men at the most" (iv. 7) are an exaggeration for the sake of the
story, or whether they truly describe the old fortifications of the city, it is
impossible to say with certainty. At the head of this ascent, a short distance
back from the brow of the hill, stood the city (xiv. 11). Rising above it and
overlooking it were mountains (vii. 13, 18; xv. 3). The "fountain"
from which came the water-supply of the city (vii. 12 et seq.) is the
great spring Ras el-'Ain, in the valley (ἐν τῷ αὐλῶνι, ib. 17) just
above Shechem, "at the foot" of Mount Gerizim. The abundant
water-supply of the modern city is probably due to a system of ancient
underground conduits from this one spring; see Robinson, "Physical
Geography of the Holy Land," p. 247, and Guérin, "Samarie," i.
401 et seq. Further corroborative evidence is given by the account of
the blockade of Bethulia in vii. 13-20. "Ekrebel" is 'Aḳrabah, three
hours southeast of Shechem, on the road to the Jordan; "Chusi" is
Ḳuza (so G. A. Smith and others), two hours south, on the road to Jerusalem.
The identity of Bethulia with Shechem is thus beyond all question. …”.
Against
this, we read in The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an
English Translation, ed. Morton Scott Enslin, p. 80): “Shechem may
well have been known to the author, but if he utilized it as the site of his
Judean Thermopylae, he has allowed himself full liberty in his description.
Bethulia is high on the mountain; Shechem was not”.
Though, on the other hand, we read in Joshua 21:21:
“… they
gave them Shechem with her suburbs in
mount Ephraim …”.
And I Kings 12:25: “Then
Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim …”.
O
Lord, the God of my ancestor Simeon, remember how you armed Simeon with a sword
to take revenge on those foreigners who seized Dinah, who was a virgin, tore
off her clothes, and defiled her; they stripped her naked and shamed her; they
raped her and disgraced her, even though you had forbidden this’.
Judith 9:2
Since Judith here recalls an unsavoury incident
that had occurred at the city of Shechem, then this would add force to the
location of her town of ‘Bethulia’ as Shechem.
That the rape of Dinah had occurred at Shechem
is apparent from the geographical lead-in of Genesis 33:18-20:
After
Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan
and camped within sight of the city. For a hundred pieces
of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem,
the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he
set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.
The pagan Canaanite, Shechem, who defiled the
virgin, turns out to be somewhat more honourable than, later, David’s eldest
son, Amnon, who, having raped his half-sister, Tamar, then abandons her as “a
desolate woman”. See my:
The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous
wife
But none of that ‘honourableness’ is about to
impress the vengeful brothers Simeon and Levi. In the following Genesis 34:1-31
account of the incident one will notice a stark contrast between Jacob’s
reaction to it and that of Simeon and Levi – and how different is Jacob’s
estimation of Simeon (and Levi) when compared to Judith’s glowing account of her
ancestor:
Dinah and the Shechemites
Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit
the women of the land. When Shechem son of Hamor the
Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her. His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young
woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to
his father Hamor, ‘Get me this girl as my wife’.
When Jacob
heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields
with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home.
Then Shechem’s
father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. Meanwhile,
Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had
happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous
thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be
done.
But Hamor said
to them, ‘My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to
him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your
daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You
can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and
acquire property in it’.
Then Shechem
said to Dinah’s father and brothers, ‘Let me find favor in your eyes, and I
will give you whatever you ask. Make the price for the
bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever
you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife’.
Because their
sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke
to Shechem and his father Hamor. They said to them, ‘We
can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not
circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. We will
enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us
by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you
our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and
become one people with you. But if you will not agree
to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go’.
Their proposal
seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. The young
man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing
what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak
to the men of their city. ‘These men are friendly
toward us’, they said. ‘Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has
plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours.
But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on
the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals
become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us’.
All the men
who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every
male in the city was circumcised.
Three days
later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and
Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city,
killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem
to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city
where their sister had been defiled. They seized their
flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out
in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and
all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.
Then Jacob
said to Simeon and Levi, ‘You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious
to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in
number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household
will be destroyed’.
But
they replied, ‘Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?’
Later, a dying Jacob will ‘curse the anger’ of the fiery pair of
brothers (49:5-7):
‘Simeon and Levi are brothers—
their swords are weapons of violence.
Let me not enter their council,
let me not join their assembly,
their swords are weapons of violence.
Let me not enter their council,
let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their
anger
and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
and disperse them in Israel’.
and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
and disperse them in Israel’.
No such negative sentiment as this will arise from
Judith, however. Had not God himself “armed Simeon
with a sword to take revenge on those foreigners who seized Dinah …”?
And now Judith will reverse the ancient crime of
the pagan Shechem by personally overcoming the god-less “Holofernes” who wishes
to take sexual advantage of her. She, like Simeon, will be ‘armed with a sword’
to accomplish the deed (Judith 13:14-16):
Judith
shouted,
‘Praise
God, give him praise! Praise God, who has not held back his mercy from the
people of Israel. Tonight he has used me to destroy our enemies’.
She
then took the head out of the food bag and showed it to the people.
‘Here’, she said, ‘is the head of Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, and here is the mosquito net from his bed, where he lay in a drunken stupor. The Lord used a woman to kill him. As the Lord lives, I swear that Holofernes never touched me, although my beauty deceived him and brought him to his ruin. I was not defiled or disgraced; the Lord took care of me through it all’.
‘Here’, she said, ‘is the head of Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, and here is the mosquito net from his bed, where he lay in a drunken stupor. The Lord used a woman to kill him. As the Lord lives, I swear that Holofernes never touched me, although my beauty deceived him and brought him to his ruin. I was not defiled or disgraced; the Lord took care of me through it all’.
In this heroic action, Judith - as the faithful
have long recognised - prefigures the Virgin Mary:
Another Old Testament heroine is Judith. The way she prefigures
Mary is somewhat different. As we know from Genesis, God put enmity
between the woman and the serpent, who represent Mary and the devil,
respectively, and through the power of her Son, the Woman would crush the
serpent’s head. Well, Judith is an image of this mystery, for she saved
her people by cutting off the head of the evil and tyrannical general,
Holofernes. Judith, like Esther and like Mary, was exceedingly beautiful
and devout, and was held in high honor by her people. When their faith
wavered in the face of the threats and power of the enemy, she counseled them
to trust in God, and not put Him to the test by placing a limit on how long
they would wait for Him before they would surrender to their enemies. For
God would deliver them at the proper time by the hand of a woman.
After Judith had killed the enemy leader and returned victorious to her
people, they sang to her (and this is used in the Latin Rite on certain feasts
of Our Lady): “You are the exaltation of Jerusalem; you are the great glory of
Israel; you are the great pride of our nation! You have done all this
single-handedly; you have done great good
to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you
forever! … The Lord Almighty has foiled them by the hand of a woman!” (Jdt.
15:9-10; 16:6). Our Lady is the Woman at whose hand (or rather, under
whose foot) God has foiled the designs of our evil enemy, the devil. God has
chosen her to bring the Savior into the world and to stand with Him and to
wield the power He has given her to protect us from evil and to neutralize its
power and influence in our lives.
There is much more that can be said about Old Testament prefigurings of
the Mother of God, but let this suffice for now. Let us realize that just
as the mystery of Christ was known in Heaven for all eternity, the mystery of
his Mother was known as well—for how could there be an incarnate Son considered
in isolation from the one who gave flesh to Him? So the mystery of both
Mother and Son was intimated in the stories of salvation history, until their
complete revelation in the fullness of time—and the ever-deepening
understanding of these divine mysteries in the ongoing life of the Church, until
the Lord returns in glory.
****************************************************
Blown away like
autumn leaves, as Lord Byron had poetically written -
so have the
winds of time erased even the memory of the Assyrian rout.
Introduction
I have often
marvelled at how thoroughly has the memory of the destruction of the Assyrian king
Sennacherib’s massive army disappeared from the records of history. “Like the leaves
of the forest when Autumn hath blown”, as Lord Byron wrote: “And the
eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill”. And: “Hath melted
like snow”.
Apart from the
occasional general, only, references to the fact of the incident, say in Sirach
(48:21): “The Lord struck down the camp of the Assyrians, and
his angel wiped them out”, or I Maccabees 7:41: “There Judas prayed, ‘Lord, the
Scriptures tell us that when a king sent messengers to insult you, your angel
went out and killed 185,000 of his soldiers’” (cf. 2 Maccabees 15:22), we have
to turn to the classical sources for any glimpse of the drama.
Herodotus,
for instance, pitted the event at “Pelusium” (the eastern extremity of the Nile
Delta), at the time of a pharaoh “Sethos”. And he attributed the disaster to a
plague of mice (2:141):
“
|
when Sanacharib, king of the
Arabians and Assyrians, marched his vast army into Egypt, the warriors one
and all refused to come to his [i.e., the Pharaoh Sethos'] aid. On
this the monarch, greatly distressed, entered into the inner sanctuary, and,
before the image of the god, bewailed the fate which impended over him. As he
wept he fell asleep, and dreamed that the god came and stood at his side,
bidding him be of good cheer, and go boldly forth to meet the Arabian host,
which would do him no hurt, as he himself would send those who should help
him. Sethos, then, relying on the dream, collected such of the Egyptians as
were willing to follow him, who were none of them warriors, but traders,
artisans, and market people; and with these marched to Pelusium, which
commands the entrance into Egypt, and there pitched his camp. As the two
armies lay here opposite one another, there came in the night, a multitude of
field-mice, which devoured all the quivers and bowstrings of the enemy, and
ate the thongs by which they managed their shields. Next morning they
commenced their fight, and great multitudes fell, as they had no arms with
which to defend themselves. There stands to this day in the temple of Vulcan,
a stone statue of Sethos, with a mouse in his hand, and an inscription to
this effect - "Look on me, and learn to reverence the gods."[2]
|
The only
detailed account of the incident (including the all-important geographical
data) that I had ever been able to find, and it is a most substantial one, is that
set out in the Book of Judith.
Here we are
provided with the why, the when, and the whereabouts of the disaster – all of it encompassed within a
magnificently readable drama which has rightly become famous.
But there are
Judith echoes to be found everywhere, from BC time through to supposed AD time,
as I pointed out in my article:
World Renowned Judith of Bethulia
in the “Lindian
Chronicle”; in parts of Homer’s The
Iliad; Tomyris and Cyrus; Beta Israel’s Gudit the Semienite, c. 1000 AD
(matching Judith the Simeonite).
Whilst I was
already aware that Douay Psalm 75 was considered to refer to King Hezekiah and
the Assyrian defeat, I had not picked up on – until now – that crucial “Salem”
(or Shalem) connection between the Psalm and the “Salem Valley” of Judith 4:4.
‘Salem’ in the
Psalm (76, Hebrew) I had considered to be a parallelism with ‘Zion’
(Jerusalem).
King Sennacherib
had, of course, successfully attacked Jerusalem and its environs during his Third Campaign, which could not, however, have been the ill-fated
Assyrian one that had resulted in the complete rout of the Gentile army. This
is quite apparent from the sequence in Isaiah 37. According to the prophecy (v.
33): ‘Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria …’, all the things that Isaiah
said the “king of Assyria” would not do,
he had already managed to do during
his highly successful Third Campaign (vv.,
33-35):
‘He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city’,
declares the Lord.
‘I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!’ [,]
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!’ [,]
this followed
immediately by (v. 36): “Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the
Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead
bodies!”
Psalm 76
(Hebrew) may finally be that missing connection for which I had been searching,
providing that all-important detail of the location of the battle and rout: viz.,
“Salem Valley”.
In Byron’s poem
there is, happily, no mention of a disaster in the vicinity of Jerusalem, with
only “Galilee” (north) being referred to:
The
Destruction of Sennacherib (1815)
George
Gordon Byron
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the
fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is
green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel
of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their
wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
