The author begins with the account of a destructive and terrible war which is being waged on the Jewish nation for refusing to serve in the armies of one Nabuchodonosor, king of Assyria, in an attack on the king of the Medes and Persians. All the names of this so-called war, and all the events as narrated, are out of joint with received history, and clearly as much creations of the writer's fancy as the Arabian Nights. It is stated that the Jews had just returned from the Babylonian captivity, and brought back their sacred vessels, and restored their temple worship after the long defilement of heathen servitude. But it is a matter of undisputed history that Nabuchodonosor was the king who carried the nation into captivity, and no other monarch of the name is known to history who performed deeds at all like those here narrated.

The story goes on to state how, to punish the Jews for not becoming his soldiers in the war, this king sent his chief commander, Holofernes, to carry destruction over their country. The mighty army of this general, and its ravages over the surrounding country, are set forth with an Oriental luxury of amplification. They come at last and straitly besiege the city of Bethulia. Whether this is a fictitious name for a real city, or whether it is a supposititious city, the creation of the author's imagination, critics are not fully decided; the story is just as pretty on one hypothesis as the other. The water being cut off, the people, suffering and dying of thirst, beset the chief-priests and elders to surrender the city to save their lives. Ozias, the chief ruler, temporizes, recommends five days of prayer; if before that time the God of Israel does not interpose, he promises to surrender.

And now the romance puts its heroine on the stage. After tracing her family and descent, it introduces her in these quaint words: "Now Judith was a widow in her house three years and four months. And she made her tent on the top of the house, put on sackcloth, and wore her widow's apparel; and she fasted all the days of her widowhood, save the eves of the Sabbaths, the Sabbaths, and the new moons and solemn feast-days of Israel. She was also of goodly countenance, and beautiful to behold, and her husband, Manasses, had left her gold and silver, and man-servants and maid-servants, and cattle, and lands; and she remained upon them. And there was none gave her an ill word, for she feared God greatly."

It is a striking exemplification of the elevated position which women held in the Jewish nation that a romance writer should introduce the incident that follows. Judith, hearing of the promise of the chief-ruler to surrender the city, sends her maid to call the governor and the chief men of the city, and they came unto her. And she said: "Hear now, O ye governors of the inhabitants of Bethulia, for the words that you have spoken are not right touching this oath, that you have promised to deliver the city to our enemies, unless within these days the Lord turn and help you. And now, who are ye that have tempted God this day, to stand in the stead of God to the children of men?"

She goes on to tell them that they have no right to say that unless God interfere for them before a certain time they will give up a sacred charge which has been entrusted to them to maintain; but it is rather their duty to stand at their posts and defend their city, without making conditions with him as to when or how he should help them. She says to them: "And now, try the Lord Almighty, and ye shall never know anything. For ye cannot find the depth of the heart of a man, neither can ye perceive what he thinketh; how, then, can ye search out God, that hath made all things, and comprehend his purposes? Nay, my brethren, provoke not the Lord our God to anger; for if he will not help within five days, he hath power to help us when he will, even every day. Do not bind the counsel of the Lord, for God is not a man that he may be threatened. Therefore, let us wait for salvation from him, and call upon him, and he will hear, if it please him."

She then shows them the disgrace and dishonor which will come upon them if they betray their trust, and they allow the sacred inheritance to be defiled and destroyed, and ends with a heroic exhortation: "Now, therefore, O brethren, let us show an example to our brethren, because their hearts depend on us, and the sanctuary and the house and the altar rest on us."

The governor and elders receive this message with respectful deference, apologize for yielding to the urgency of the people, who were mad with the sufferings of thirst, and compelled them to make this promise, and adds: "Therefore, pray thou for us, for thou art a goodly woman, and the Lord will send us rain, and fill our cisterns that we thirst no more." At this moment Judith receives a sudden flash of heroic inspiration, and announces to them, that, if they will send her forth without the city that night, the Lord will visit Israel by her hand. She adds that they must not inquire further of her purpose, until the design she has in view be finished. The magistrates, confiding implicitly in her, agree to forward her plan blindly.

The story now introduces us to the private oratory, where Judith pours out her heart before God. So says the narrative: "Then Judith fell on her face, and put ashes on her head, and uncovered the sackcloth wherewith she was clothed, and about the time that the incense of that evening was offered in Jerusalem in the house of the Lord, Judith cried with a loud voice to the Lord."

The prayer of Judith is eloquent in its fervent simplicity, and breathes that intense confidence in God as the refuge of the helpless, which is characteristic of Jewish literature. "Behold," she says, "the Assyrians are multiplied in their power, and are exalted with horse and man; they glory in the strength of their footmen; they trust in shield and spear and bow, and know not that thou art the Lord that breakest battles. The Lord is thy name. Throw down their strength in thy power, and bring down their force in thy wrath, for they have purposed to defile thy sanctuary, and to pollute the tabernacle where thy glorious name resteth, and to cast down with sword the home of thy altar. Behold their pride. Send thy wrath upon their heads, and give unto me, which am a widow, the power that I have conceived. For thy power standeth not in multitude, nor thy might in strong men; for thou art the God of the afflicted, thou art an helper of the oppressed, an upholder of the weak, a protector of the forlorn, a saviour of them that are without hope. I pray thee, I pray thee, O God of my father, King of every creature! hear my prayer, and make my speech and deceit to be their wound and stripe, who have purposed cruel things against thy covenant, and thy hallowed house, and against the house of the possession of thy children."

When she had thus prayed, the story goes on to say she called her maid, and, laying aside the garments of her widowhood, dressed herself in the utmost splendor, adorning herself with jewels, and practicing every art of the toilet to set off her beauty. Thus attired, she with her maid went forth from the city towards the Assyrian army, meaning to be taken prisoner. As she designed, she was met by the outguards of the army, and carried at once to the tent of their general, professing that she had come to show him a way whereby he could go in and win all the hill country without loss of a man. The sensation produced by her entrance into the camp is well given: "Then there was a concourse through all the camp, for her coming was noised among the tents, and they came about her as she stood waiting without the tent of Holofernes; and they wondered at her beauty, and admired the children of Israel because of her, and every one said to his neighbors, Who would despise this people that have among them such women?"

The story next gives the scene where Holofernes, dazzled by her beauty and enchanted by her manners, becomes entirely subject to her will, receives and entertains her as a sovereign princess. She easily persuades him to believe the story she tells him. This people, she says, are under the protection of their God so long as they do not violate the rules of their religion, but, under the pressure of famine, they are about to eat of forbidden articles and to consume the sacred offerings due to the temple. Then their God will turn against them and deliver them into his hands. She will remain with him, and go forth from time to time; and when the sacrilege is accomplished, she will let him know that the hour to fall upon them is come.

So Judith is installed in state and all honor near the court of the commander, and enjoys to the full the right to exercise the rites of her national religion,—nay, the infatuated Holofernes goes so far as to promise her that, in the event of her succeeding in her promises, he will himself adopt the God of Israel for his God. After a day or two spent in this way, in which she goes forth every night for prayer and ablutions at the fountain, there comes the attempt to draw her into the harem of the general. Holofernes, in conference with Bagoas, the chief of his eunuchs, seems to think that the beautiful JudÆan woman would laugh him to scorn if he suffered such an opportunity to pass unimproved. Accordingly a private banquet is arranged, and the chief of the eunuchs carries the invitation in true Oriental style, as follows: "Let not this fair damsel fear to come unto my lord, and to be honored in his presence, and to drink wine and be merry, and to be made this day as one of the Assyrians that serve in the house of Nabuchodonosor." Judith graciously accepts the invitation, decks herself with all her jewelry, and comes to the banquet and ravishes the heart of the commandant with her smiles. Excited and flattered, he drinks, it is said, more wine than ever he drunk before; so that, at the close of the feast, when the servants departed and Judith was left alone in the tent with him, he was lying dead drunk with wine on the cushions of his divan.

The rest is told in the story: "Then all went out and there was none left in the bedchamber, neither little nor great. Then Judith, standing by the bed, said in her heart, O Lord God of all power, look, at this present, on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. For now is the time to help thy inheritance and to execute my enterprise to the destruction of the enemies that are risen up against us. Then came she to the pillow of the couch, and took down the fauchion from thence, and approached his bed, and took hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day, and she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him and went forth."

She returns to the city in the dim gray of the morning, bearing her trophy and the canopy and hangings of the bed whereon the enemy lay: "Then called Judith afar off to the watchmen, Open now the gates, for God, even our God, is with us to show his power yet in Israel and his strength against the enemy." A hasty midnight summons brings together the elders of the city. A fire is kindled, and they gather round her, as, radiant with triumphant excitement, she breaks forth in triumph: "Praise, praise, praise God, praise God, I say, for he has not taken away his mercy from the house of Israel, but hath destroyed the enemy by my hand this night." And she took the head out of the bag and showed it to them, and said: "Behold the head of Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Assur, and behold the canopy where he did lie in his drunkenness, and the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a woman. As the Lord liveth, who hath kept me in my way that I went, my countenance hath deceived him to his destruction, yet he hath not committed sin with me to defile and shame me."

Then Ozias said, "O daughter, blessed art thou among all the women of the earth, and blessed be the Lord God which created the heavens and the earth, which hath directed thee to the cutting off of the head of our chief enemy. For this thy confidence shall not depart from the hearts of men which remember the power of God forever. And God turn these things for a perpetual praise, because thou hast not spared thy life for the affliction of our nation, but hast avenged our ruin, walking in a straight way before our God. And all the people said, Amen, so be it."

The sequel of the story is, that the inspired prophetess directs her citizens to rush down upon the army in the first confusion of the loss of its general; and, this advice being followed, a general panic and rout of the hostile army follows, and the whole camp is taken and spoiled.

The story ends with a solemn procession of thanksgiving and worship, the men wreathed with flowers around their armor, and headed by Judith crowned with a garland of olive leaves, and leading forth a solemn rhythmic dance while she sings a hymn of victory. This song of Judith, evidently modeled on the victorious anthem of Deborah under the same circumstances, is less vigorous and fiery, but more polished and finished. Had it stood alone, it had been thought an unrivalled composition of its kind. The animus of it is, in some respects, the same with that of the song of Hannah,—it exults in the might of God as the protector of the weak and helpless. There is an intensely feminine exultation in the consciousness that she, though weak as a woman, has been made the means of overcoming this strength:—

How magnificent is the conception of the woman here given! Lowly, devout, given up to loving memories of family life, yet capable in the hour of danger of rising to the highest inspirations of power. Poetess, prophetess, inspirer, leader, by the strength of that power by which the helpless hold the hand of Almighty God and triumph in his strength, she becomes the deliverer of her people.