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Judith alludes to Exodus 34 by repeating the pattern of destroying altars, idols, and sacred groves, aligning itself with the traditions in the Torah that define proper worship through the total rejection of foreign cultic symbols.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 34:13
Hebrew Bible
12 Be careful not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare among you. 13 Rather you must destroy their altars, smash their images, and cut down their Asherah poles. 14 For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Judith 3:7
Deuterocanon
6 He came down toward the sea coast, he and his army, and set garrisons in the high cities, and took out of them chosen men for allies. 7 They received him, they and all the country round about them, with garlands and dances and timbrels. 8 He cast down all their borders, and cut down their sacred groves. It had been given to him to destroy all the gods of the land, that all the nations would worship Nebuchadnezzar only, and that all their tongues and their tribes would call upon him as a god. 9 Then he came toward Esdraelon near to Dotaea, which is opposite the great ridge of Judea.
Date: 100 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Hanhart preserves the reading (destroyed their territory), but the emendation (destroyed their shrines) should be preferred here. The reading is based on the Syriac (templa), which may have been influenced in turn by the mention of Holophernes plundering at 4:1. Holophernes cuts down sacred groves here as well, and the word is the regular LXX translation of [the Hebrew], the sacred trees or poles of the goddess Asherah. Since the destruction of such sacred poles is frequently mentioned in the MT together with the destruction of altars and idols - see Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 7:5; 2 Kings 18:4; 23:14–15; 2 Chronicles 14:2; 17:6; 31:1; 34:3–4, 7 - it is likely that the combination is found here as well ..."
Deborah Levine Gera, Judith (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 163.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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