She tumbled his body off the bed: Good News Translation has “She rolled his body off the bed.” As Enslin suggests, this certainly adds insult to injury. It probably also conjures up the image of Sisera lying dead in a pool of blood at Jael’s feet in Jdg 5.27.

Pulled down the canopy from the posts: For canopy and why Judith takes it, see the note on 10.21. The posts here are whatever was used to support the canopy. “Poles” or simply “supports” may be more likely.

After a moment she went out: For after a moment Good News Translation has “Then.” This is too weak. New Revised Standard Version‘s “Soon afterward” suggests that Judith stayed in Holofernes’ bedchamber awhile, perhaps regaining her composure; this is consistent with the Greek.

For food bag see 10.5.

Then the two of them went out together: Good News Translation‘s “Then the two women left together” is helpful. This is the proper place to begin a new paragraph, as most translations feel. The verse numbering will have to give way to logical blocking out of the material for paragraphing, or even, as in Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version, for a section heading.

As they were accustomed to go for prayer: Good News Translation has “as they always did when they went to pray.” One may want to consider expressing this “as they had been doing each night to pray” (see 12.7-9). Moore adds a nice touch here. He translates “The two of them then went out, as they always did, ‘to pray.’ ” He adds the quotation marks around “to pray” to indicate that this was not at all why they were going out this time, at any rate.

They passed through the camp and circled around the valley: Here Judith and her maid are reversing the journey they made away from the city in 10.10. See the note on the geography at that point. There is a difference in the description here. In 10.10 the women went straight through the valley. Here they circled around the valley. This is an important difference, which Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version ignore. In chapter 10 they went by a route where they were sure to be seen and taken prisoner. In this case they take a roundabout way, because they want to escape notice. No one in the Assyrian camp knows yet what has happened.

Came to its gates: “Approached the gates” would be better. In the next verse Judith calls out to the sentries while she is still some distance off. The Greek here does not say that the women actually got to the gates, only that they came toward the gates.

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.