Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 1 ▾
City of God 1× 5
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Judith 5 about?

Holofernes, enraged that any people would dare resist, demands to know who these Israelites are, and Achior, leader of the Ammonites, answers with an honest account of their history. He recounts how the God of heaven had led them from Egypt, given them their land, and protected them so long as they did not sin against Him, but had handed them over to their enemies whenever they turned away. Achior warns the general to learn whether Israel has transgressed, for if they are guiltless their God will shield them and Holofernes will become a laughingstock. His counsel plants the book's governing conviction, that this war will be decided not by numbers but by whether Israel remains faithful to her God.

Historical backdrop

The book was written in the second century BC, in the years when a small Judea faced the vast machinery of a Hellenistic empire and remembered older deliverances. Its named enemy is deliberately composite: a Nebuchadnezzar who reigns from Assyrian Nineveh, generals with Persian names, an empire assembled from every oppressor Israel had known. The setting is not sober chronicle but a portrait of the one perennial danger, the great power that demands worship and marches on the weak.

The Church Fathers on Judith 5
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Judith 5

Judith Chapter 5
5
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What is Judith 5 about?

Holofernes, enraged that any people would dare resist, demands to know who these Israelites are, and Achior, leader of the Ammonites, answers with an honest account of their history. He recounts how the God of heaven had led them from Egypt, given them their land, and protected them so long as they did not sin against Him, but had handed them over to their enemies whenever they turned away. Achior warns the general to learn whether Israel has transgressed, for if they are guiltless their God will shield them and Holofernes will become a laughingstock. His counsel plants the book's governing conviction, that this war will be decided not by numbers but by whether Israel remains faithful to her God.