Responsibility for Murder: The Background of Judith’s Legal Argumentation

Abstract In Jdt 8:22, Judith describes the woes that will come to pass should her besieged town Bethulia be taken by an invading Assyrian army. The townspeople have cried out for want of water and intend to surrender their town to save their own lives. Among the woes described by Judith is the “murder of our brothers.” By appealing to murder, Judith frames the in-text audience as participants in a moral outrage, one that their action may prevent. A consideration of other threats made and feared in the book of Judith and comparative Jewish texts concerning murder suggests that Judith makes a legal claim of culpability for the deaths of others. This is demonstrated through the treatment of the term “murder” (ϕόνος) throughout the book of Judith, and how this will be repaid should the audience fail to resist and Bethulia fall.