Fasting and Feasting in the Camp

The vast Assyrian military camp operates on strict rationing and rigid guard schedules. Holofernes attempts to feed the Jewish widow directly from his personal silver table. She refuses his roasted meats and foreign wine to maintain her strict dietary laws. Instead, she survives on small stores of parched grain, pressed figs, and olive oil.

The massive encampment sprawls across the valley floor below the mountain pass of Bethulia. Each night, Judith walks nearly 3,000 feet beyond the sleeping guard posts. She washes in a natural cold spring to maintain strict ritual purity. The armed sentries allow her safe passage according to their commanding general's orders.

On the fourth day, activity shifts to the general's personal command tent. This heavy fabric structure houses a private banquet during the early sixth century b.c. Judith enters wearing rich garments and sits on thick sheepskins laid across the dirt floor.

I will drink now, my lord, because my life is magnified in me this day more than all the days since I was born.

The confident Assyrian commander consumes enormous quantities of strong, undiluted wine throughout the feast. His personal servants slowly exit the large tent to leave the two alone. The oil lamps burn low as Holofernes collapses onto his mattress in a deep stupor.