PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

condemned by God, while those who humbly entrust themselves to God will ultimately
receive his powerful vindication: 31
Judith 9:7-9
For see: the Assyrians have increased in their power, exalting themselves on
account of horse and rider, priding themselves in the strength of their army,
placing their hope in shield and spear and bow and sling; and they do not know
that you are the Lord who crushes wars. The Lord is your name. You throw
down the strong in your power, and you bring down their might in your wrath.
For they have conspired to pollute your holy places, to defile the resting place of
your glorious name, to cut down the horns of your altar with iron. Look at their
arrogance, and send your wrath upon their heads.
As in 3 Maccabees, God’s practice of vindicating the persecuted is seen as essential to his
identity:
Judith 9:11, 14
For your might is not in numbers, nor your power in the strong; but you are God
of the humble, helper of the inferior, protector of the weak, shelterer of the
weary, saviour of the despairing…. and make your whole nation and every tribe
know that you are God, God of all power and might, and that there is no other
defender of the people of Israel except you!
Interestingly, this understanding of the identity of God is expressed in liturgy, as Judith
sings of the God who condemns boasters and vindicates the meek (16:1-17), recalling the
hymnic celebrations of divine reversal in the Psalms, Exodus 15, and 1 Samuel 2 (and
seen also in the Magnificat).
31 Lawrence Mitchell Wills compares the story of Judith with preceding Jewish storylines
and concludes that in Judith, the condemnation of the wicked and the vindication of the
humble are distinctively brought together into the same event: reversal and deliverance are
seen together as “one great triumph”. Lawrence Mitchell Wills, The Jewish Novel in the
Ancient World (New York: Cornell University Press, 1995), 157.
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