Synopsis of the Chapter
Holofernes sends Achior bound to Bethulia, so that when it is captured, he may kill him with the citizens; the Jews kindly receive and comfort him.
Verse 2: Since You Have Prophesied ¶
2. Since you have prophesied, — that is, predicted, not from an oracle received from God, but from human prudence and the experience of former times.
Verse 4: You Shall Breathe No More ¶
4. YOU SHALL BREATHE NO MORE, UNTIL YOU ARE EXTERMINATED. — The word 'until' does not refer to 'you shall breathe,' for one who does not breathe is already exterminated and dead: but rather refers above to 'the sword shall pass through your sides, and pierced you shall fall,' namely so that 'you shall breathe no more,' that is, until you are completely lifeless and 'exterminated with them.'
Verse 6: You Shall Be Associated With Their People ¶
6. YOU SHALL BE ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR PEOPLE, — as if to say: You appear, Achior, to be a secret ally and supporter of the Jews, and therefore my betrayer: so go to those whose company you preferred to mine, and be openly my enemy, as they are, so that you who are their partner in hostility may also be a participant in the vengeance of their destruction.
Verse 10: The Children of Israel Came to Him ¶
10. THEN THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, DESCENDING FROM BETHULIA, CAME TO HIM. — Bethulia was a city of Galilee in the tribe of Zebulun, situated on a mountain, three leagues distant from Dothan, where Joseph was captured by his brothers and stripped of his coat of many colors. Brocardus and Adrichomius add that even today traces of Holofernes' camp can be seen there. 'Bethulia' in Hebrew means the same as 'virginity of God.' For she was as a virgin, untouched by the destruction of Holofernes, through the chaste Judith.
Moreover, Bethulia properly belonged to the tribe of Zebulun, and therefore belonging to the kingdom of Israel, that is, of the ten tribes: but when they were carried off to Assyria, the tribe of Judah claimed it and many other cities of Israel for itself; for all of Canaan had been given by God to the descendants of Jacob, and when part of them were carried off, the rest who survived, namely the Jews, as brothers succeeded by right of kinship and nature to the inheritance of the ten tribes as of their brothers.
Verse 11: The Princes Were Ozias and Charmi ¶
11. IN THOSE DAYS THE PRINCES THERE WERE OZIAS SON OF MICAH OF THE TRIBE OF SIMEON, AND CHARMI, WHO IS ALSO OTHONIEL. — For although Bethulia was in the tribe of Zebulun, it had a leader from another tribe, namely Simeon, just as Judges from various tribes presided over all Israel. Hence Ozias is also called in chapter VIII, verse 34: 'Prince of Judah,' and in chapter XIII, verse 23: 'Prince of the people of Israel.' Lyranus and Dionysius think Ozias and Charmi were senior priests, because in the Greek they are called presbyters. But πρέσβυς, that is, presbyter, means an elder and one advanced in age, whether layman or priest. Hence again these events seem not to have happened under King Manasseh, but after the captivity under the leaders Ozias and Charmi.
Verse 15: The Face of Your Holy Ones ¶
15. And the face of Your holy ones. — In Greek, 'of those sanctified,' that is, of Your faithful ones, who dedicated themselves to You through circumcision, and now again through fasting, prayer, and suppliant prayers wholly sanctify, that is, dedicate and consecrate themselves to You.
FOR YOU DO NOT FORSAKE THOSE WHO TRUST IN YOU, — that is, those who are confident in You; for they above all and before all things take God as the leader of their works and commander of their war, and through Him they hope for certain victory. Thus St. Germanus, when a spreading fire threatened him while he was ill, would not allow himself to be moved by others, 'by the presumption of faith,' says Bede, book I of the History of the English, chapter XIX.
THOSE WHO TRUST IN THEMSELVES, (that is, relying on themselves and their own strength: hence explaining, he adds,) AND GLORY IN THEIR OWN STRENGTH, YOU HUMBLE. — Hear St. Bernard, book On the Steps of Humility, step 7: 'He who thinks he surpasses others, how can he not presume more of himself than of others? He sits first in assemblies, in councils he answers first, he comes uninvited, intrudes himself unsent, he rearranges what has been arranged, remakes what has been done; whatever he himself has not done or arranged, he considers neither rightly done nor well arranged. He judges those who judge, and prejudges those who are about to judge.'
Verse 16: They Comforted Achior ¶
16. They comforted Achior, — yet they did not admit him to their counsels or place him in charge of the war, because the loyalty of deserters is suspect; for thus Judith, pretending to desert to the Assyrians, Hushai to Absalom, II Kings XVII, Sinon to the Trojans, Zopyrus the commander of Darius Hystaspes to the Babylonians, all betrayed them to their enemies.
Verse 21: They Prayed in the Synagogue ¶
21. And afterward (after the refreshment and frugal banquet) all the people were called together, and throughout the whole night they prayed in the synagogue, asking aid from the God of Israel. — For as St. Jerome says, epistle to Eustochium: 'You should always eat in such a way that prayer and reading follow your food.' And to Laeta, on the Education of a Daughter: 'Eat so that you are always hungry, so that immediately after eating you can read and sing psalms.' Tertullian, Apology chapter XXXIX, refuting the calumny of the pagans about the drunkenness of Christians, with which they cast at them the saying of Diogenes: 'The Megarians feast as if they will die tomorrow, they build as if they will never die,' describes the Agape, that is, the love-feast common to all Christians after the Eucharist, thus: 'No one reclines before prayer to God has been tasted first; they eat as much as the hungry desire; they drink as much as is useful for the modest; they satisfy themselves in such a way that they remember they must worship God even through the night; they converse in such a way that they know the Lord is listening. After washing of hands and lights, each person is invited to sing to God in the midst, from the holy Scriptures or from their own talent: from this it is proved how they have drunk. And prayer ends the banquet: from there they depart not into bands of brawlers, nor into squads of vagabonds, nor into outbursts of wantonness, but with the same care for modesty, as those who have supped not so much on a dinner as on discipline.' Let the faithful read this and imitate the frugality and piety of the first Christians at their banquets. Note: 'in the synagogue,' that is, in the synagogue, the place of assembly and prayer, which is hence called in Greek προσευχή: for the Jews did not have a temple in Bethulia, but only in Jerusalem; but they had a synagogue in place of the temple in each larger city. See here likewise the antiquity of nocturnal vigils, by which on great feasts, or on account of pressing calamities, all the people kept watch in the temple at Jerusalem, and outside Jerusalem in the proseucha (as the Greek text has here) or synagogue devoted to prayer. Hence Josephus in his own life: 'On the following day, he says, the people assembled in the proseuchas, which they call a spacious house of prayer.' Likewise Philo, On the Life of Moses, book III: 'Among the Jews, he says, there are places in each town designated for sacred prayers, which the people commonly call proseuchas.'
On these sacred vigils see St. Basil, on Psalm CXIV, Eusebius, book VI of the History, chapter VII, Tertullian, book II To His Wife, chapter IV.