He demolished all their shrines and cut down their sacred groves: As the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, it is following the Syriac translation for shrines. The Greek text has “borders.” Most translations adopt the reading of the Syriac here with good reason. The original Hebrew text very likely read “high places” (that is, “places of worship” as in Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version), which Greek could have translated “mountains.” Since the Greek words “mountains” and “borders” are easily confused, “borders” probably replaced “mountains” by mistake. Another argument in favor of reading shrines here is its association with sacred groves (“sacred trees” in Good News Translation). Shrines (“high places”) are often associated with sacred objects, such as sacred groves. Compare 1 Kgs 14.23; 2 Kgs 16.4; and Jer 2.20. Shrines may also be expressed as “places to worship their gods,” and sacred groves as “trees dedicated to their gods” or “tabu trees.”

“High places” and sacred groves are associated with Canaanite worship. They were sometimes destroyed by Israelite reformers; compare 2 Kgs 18.4. Holofernes is here destroying them, but he is not portrayed as doing God’s work. He has been ordered by Nebuchadnezzar to destroy all gods to make way for the worship of Nebuchadnezzar. He represents a religious threat to Israel even though these are Canaanite and Philistine towns he is dealing with. But the reader knows that Holofernes is on the borders of Israel and into Israel he must soon go. There he may be expected to represent the same kind of threat to Israelite freedom and religion. This is the first time in the book that the worship of Nebuchadnezzar as a god has been specifically mentioned, but from the way Nebuchadnezzar has acted and spoken, the reader is prepared for this claim, even though it is made indirectly, and not in the king’s own words. The forces of a god will be coming up the hillsides from the seacoast to challenge the Lord, who to Holofernes is just another of the “gods of the land.” While there is no evidence that Assyrian or Babylonian rulers ever styled themselves gods, the readers of Judith in their own day were certainly familiar with rulers who made just that claim. Compare Dan 11.36 and 2 Macc 9.12.

For it had been given him to destroy all the gods of the land: This passive clause may be rendered in the active voice; for example, “for Nebuchadnezzar had ordered him to destroy all the gods [or, idols] of those peoples.”

So that all nations should worship Nebuchadnezzar only may be rendered “so that the people of all these countries should worship [or, serve] only King Nebuchadnezzar.”

And all their tongues and tribes should call upon him as a god: Tongues refers to languages. However, in some languages it will be difficult to talk about “languages” calling upon Nebuchanezzar as a god. In such cases translators may follow Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version, which both use “nations.” Call upon him as god means “pray to him as god” (Good News Translation; similarly Contemporary English Version).

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.