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Judith 14:3 "Then they will seize their arms and go into the camp and rouse the officers of the Assyrian army; and they will rush into the tent of Holofernes and will not find him. Then fear will come over them, and they will flee before you".

 

Judith says fear will come over the Assyrian army when they cannot find their captain, Holofernes, and rightly so, since she has just delivered his head to her people, and is now urging them to array themselves as if for attack against the encamped Assyrian army. (Judith 14:1-2).

 

When reading the Old Testament, it can help to get the "bigger picture" by thinking of the enemies of Israel as the demonic principalities and powers with which we are all doing battle. Judith's incredibly brave and successful personal mission against the Assyrians, in which she deceived them into accepting her into their camp and then killed their general, Holofernes, can also be read as a way to deal with the devil and his minions. The devil seems so powerful, we can often feel as weak as a single woman against him. His army of fallen angels surround him, adding to his air of invincibility. Yet we know his weaknesses (mainly because they are ours, too). We know he is very defeatable, all we have to do is resist him. And, unlike Judith, we know he has already been defeated utterly by our Lord, so what we face is an already defeated foe (but one who is very angry about his defeat, let us not forget).

 

The devil looks at us as like him, subject to the same desires for power, control, praise and, yes, lust. We are subject to those temptations, but we are also able to resist them. We can give ourselves over to God in complete humility (something that Lucifer refused to do), gain virtue, and thus lose our tastes for these things, or at least dampen them enough so that we can easily resist them. When we do that, we  become so powerful against the forces of evil that we can easily take them on, even individually (although not alone, God will be at our side).

 

Also, notice that Judith plays the devil with his own playbook, she deceives him. She presents herself as the beautiful, innocent escapee from Israel who wants to help Holofernes defeat her sinful people, because that is the very "bait" that is most tempting to Holofernes. (Judith 11:16-21) Later, she tells Israel to arraign themselves as if for battle, knowing full well they will not have to raise a sword, because the possibility of a seemingly un-losable fight will be something the enemy's army will not be able to resist (Judith 14:1-3).

 

The devil is the ultimate deceiver, but he is so blinded by his own ego and pride that he can never admit to himself that he can be deceived. That is his weak point, and the weak point of our earthly foes who are acting like him. When we strengthen ourselves enough to resist his temptations and deceptions, we can easily stand up to him and his minions, and even win great victories against them, with the host of Heaven guiding our every step, just as they did for Judith.