Note 8 — JANUARY AND MAY:
Reading edition
Lo Judith, as the story telle can, By wise counsel she Goddes people kept And slew him Holofernes while he slept. Lo Abigail by good counsel how she Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain.
The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.