Baruch

Name and Authorship

The title of the book comes from its opening verse, which attributes the book to Baruch son of Neriah, the scribe of Jeremiah (see Jer 32.12; 36.4), and locates Baruch in the Babylonian exile of the early sixth century bce. According to Jer 43.1–7, he and Jeremiah went to Egypt, not Babylon, in 582 bce. This, along with historical errors in the introduction (1.1–14; see, e.g., 1.11n.), suggests that the work was not actually written by Baruch. Later rabbinic tradition also places Baruch in Babylon (Mid. Rab. Song 5.5; b. Meg. 16b; Seder Olam R. 26). The book is often referred to as 1 Baruch to distinguish it from other writings also attributed to Baruch (e.g., 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch).

Canonical Status and Location in Canon

In the Protestant tradition the book of Baruch is included in the Apocrypha; in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches it is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. In Catholic Bibles the book is located between Lamentations and Ezekiel, with the Letter of Jeremiah (see p. pp. 1559–1563) appended as the final chapter of Baruch. In the Orthodox churches the book is between Jeremiah and Lamentations. Baruch is not included in the Jewish canon of scripture.

Date of Composition and Historical Context

Scholars often date the book of Baruch to the second or first centuries bce. The book's themes of communal repentance, the gift of the Torah to Israel, and the glorification of Jerusalem through the return of the exiles may indicate a date during the national revival led by the Maccabees that began during the revolt against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 bce).

Literary History, Structure, and Contents

On the basis of its literary style scholars think that the book was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek; however, no Hebrew manuscript of Baruch is known. There are ancient versions of Baruch in other languages, such as Latin and Syriac.

The book has four major sections: historical introduction (1.1–14); confession of sin (1.15–3.8); Wisdom poem (3.9–4.4); and poem of consolation (4.5–5.9). While themes such as exile and the confession of sin are found throughout the work, these four sections differ significantly in form and content. Different names for God are used in the confession (“Lord”), in the Wisdom poem (“God”), and in the poem of consolation (“the Everlasting”). The different sections may have been written separately and combined later. Much of the book is a pastiche of quotations and paraphrases of scriptural texts (see the annotations). This type of composition was popular in the late Second Temple period.

Interpretation

The Babylonian exile was not a living reality for the author of Baruch but a context for reflection on maintaining the vitality of the relationship between God and Israel. The book attributes the Babylonian exile to national sin (1.21–2.1). The curses of the covenant have now come upon the people (1.20; compare 2.3 and Deut 28.53). The book offers a way to alleviate this difficult situation: confess your sins and turn to God. The people need to renew their dedication to God and the covenant. This is the core message of the prayer in 1.15–3.8. The poem in 3.9–4.4 encourages Israel to learn “where there is wisdom” (3.14)—God has found Wisdom, and he has given it to Israel in the form of the Torah (3.36–4.1a). Wisdom, as elsewhere in wisdom literature, is associated with life (3.9; 4.1b; Prov 3.16). God, the book promises, will reward repentance by returning the exiles to Judah (4.36–5.9). The exile represents death and sin (3.4,10–11); return to Zion symbolizes life and devotion to God.

Although the book of Baruch originated in the Jewish community, it has traditionally not been authoritative in rabbinic Judaism. Early Christian writers, however, frequently quoted the book as scripture. Baruch 3.36–37, which refers to Wisdom appearing on earth and living with humankind, was often cited because of its Christological interpretation (cf. Jn 1.14).

Matthew Goff

1

These are the words of the book that Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah son of Zedekiah son of Hasadiah son of Hilkiah wrote in Babylon, ²in the fifth year, on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burned it with fire.

³Baruch read the words of this book to Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and to all the people who came to hear the book, ⁴and to the nobles and the princes, and to the elders, and to all the people, small and great, all who lived in Babylon by the river Sud.

⁵Then they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord; ⁶they collected as much money as each could give, ⁷and sent it to Jerusalem to the high priest^a Jehoiakim son of Hilkiah son of Shallum, and to the priests, and to all the people who were present with him in Jerusalem. ⁸At the same time, on the tenth day of Sivan, Baruch^b took the vessels of the house of the Lord, which had been carried away from the temple, to return them to the land of Judah—the silver vessels that Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, had made, ⁹after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away from Jerusalem Jeconiah and the princes and the prisoners and the nobles and the people of the land, and brought them to Babylon.

¹⁰They said: Here we send you money; so buy with the money burnt offerings and sin offerings and incense, and prepare a grain offering, and offer them on the altar of the Lord our God; ¹¹and pray for the life of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and for the life of his son Belshazzar, so that their days on earth may be like the days of heaven. ¹²The Lord will give us strength, and light to our eyes; we shall live under the protection^c of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and under the protection of his son Belshazzar, and we shall serve them many days and find favor in their sight. ¹³Pray also for us to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and to this day the anger of the Lord and his wrath have not turned away from us. ¹⁴And you shall read aloud this scroll that we are sending you, to make your confession in the house of the Lord on the days of the festivals and at appointed seasons.

¹⁵And you shall say: The Lord our God is in the right, but there is open shame on us today, on the people of Judah, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ¹⁶and on our kings, our rulers, our priests, our prophets, and our ancestors, ¹⁷because we have sinned before the Lord. ¹⁸We have disobeyed him, and have not heeded the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in the statutes of the Lord that he set before us. ¹⁹From the time when the Lord brought our ancestors out of the land of Egypt until today, we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, and we have been negligent, in not heeding his voice. ²⁰So to this day there have clung to us the calamities and the curse that the Lord declared through his servant Moses at the time when he brought our ancestors out of the land of Egypt to give to us a land flowing with milk and honey. ²¹We did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us, ²²but all of us followed the intent of our own wicked hearts by serving other gods and doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord our God.

2

So the Lord carried out the threat he spoke against us: against our judges who ruled Israel, and against our kings and our rulers and the people of Israel and Judah. ²Under the whole heaven there has not been done the like of what he has done in Jerusalem, in accordance with the threats that were^a written in the law of Moses. ³Some of us ate the flesh of their sons and others the flesh of their daughters. ⁴He made them subject to all the kingdoms around us, to be an object of scorn and a desolation among all the surrounding peoples, where the Lord has scattered them. ⁵They were brought down and not raised up, because our nation^b sinned against the Lord our God, in not heeding his voice.

⁶The Lord our God is in the right, but there is open shame on us and our ancestors this very day. ⁷All those calamities with which the Lord threatened us have come upon us. ⁸Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord by turning away, each of us, from the thoughts of our wicked hearts. ⁹And the Lord has kept the calamities ready, and the Lord has brought them upon us, for the Lord is just in all the works that he has commanded us to do. ¹⁰Yet we have not obeyed his voice, to walk in the statutes of the Lord that he set before us.

¹¹And now, O Lord God of Israel, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and with signs and wonders and with great power and outstretched arm, and made yourself a name that continues to this day, ¹²we have sinned, we have been ungodly, we have done wrong, O Lord our God, against all your ordinances. ¹³Let your anger turn away from us, for we are left, few in number, among the nations where you have scattered us. ¹⁴Hear, O Lord, our prayer and our supplication, and for your own sake deliver us, and grant us favor in the sight of those who have carried us into exile; ¹⁵so that all the earth may know that you are the Lord our God, for Israel and his descendants are called by your name.

¹⁶O Lord, look down from your holy dwelling, and consider us. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; ¹⁷open your eyes, O Lord, and see, for the dead who are in Hades, whose spirit has been taken from their bodies, will not ascribe glory or justice to the Lord; ¹⁸but the person who is deeply grieved, who walks bowed and feeble, with failing eyes and famished soul, will declare your glory and righteousness, O Lord.

¹⁹For it is not because of any righteous deeds of our ancestors or our kings that we bring before you our prayer for mercy, O Lord our God. ²⁰For you have sent your anger and your wrath upon us, as you declared by your servants the prophets, saying: ²¹Thus says the Lord: Bend your shoulders and serve the king of Babylon, and you will remain in the land that I gave to your ancestors. ²²But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord and will not serve the king of Babylon, ²³I will make to cease from the towns of Judah and from the region around Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, and the whole land will be a desolation without inhabitants.

²⁴But we did not obey your voice, to serve the king of Babylon; and you have carried out your threats, which you spoke by your servants the prophets, that the bones of our kings and the bones of our ancestors would be brought out of their resting place; ²⁵and indeed they have been thrown out to the heat of day and the frost of night. They perished in great misery, by famine and sword and pestilence. ²⁶And the house that is called by your name you have made as it is today, because of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

²⁷Yet you have dealt with us, O Lord our God, in all your kindness and in all your great compassion, ²⁸as you spoke by your servant Moses on the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the people of Israel, saying, ²⁹“If you will not obey my voice, this very great multitude will surely turn into a small number among the nations, where I will scatter them. ³⁰For I know that they will not obey me, for they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile they will come to themselves ³¹and know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart that obeys and ears that hear; ³²they will praise me in the land of their exile, and will remember my name ³³and turn from their stubbornness and their wicked deeds; for they will remember the ways of their ancestors, who sinned before the Lord. ³⁴I will bring them again into the land that I swore to give to their ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they will rule over it; and I will increase them, and they will not be diminished. ³⁵I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God and they shall be my people; and I will never again remove my people Israel from the land that I have given them.”

3

O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, the soul in anguish and the wearied spirit cry out to you. ²Hear, O Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned before you. ³For you are enthroned forever, and we are perishing forever. ⁴O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the people^a of Israel, the children of those who sinned before you, who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, so that calamities have clung to us. ⁵Do not remember the iniquities of our ancestors, but in this crisis remember your power and your name. ⁶For you are the Lord our God, and it is you, O Lord, whom we will praise. ⁷For you have put the fear of you in our hearts so that we would call upon your name; and we will praise you in our exile, for we have put away from our hearts all the iniquity of our ancestors who sinned against you. ⁸See, we are today in our exile where you have scattered us, to be reproached and cursed and punished for all the iniquities of our ancestors, who forsook the Lord our God.

⁹Hear the commandments of life, O Israel;

  give ear, and learn wisdom!

¹⁰Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies,

  that you are growing old in a foreign country,

that you are defiled with the dead,

  ¹¹that you are counted among those in Hades?

¹²You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.

¹³If you had walked in the way of God,

  you would be living in peace forever.

¹⁴Learn where there is wisdom,

  where there is strength,

  where there is understanding,

so that you may at the same time discern

  where there is length of days, and life,

  where there is light for the eyes, and peace.

¹⁵Who has found her place?

  And who has entered her storehouses?

¹⁶Where are the rulers of the nations,

  and those who lorded it over the animals on earth;

¹⁷those who made sport of the birds of the air,

  and who hoarded up silver and gold

in which people trust,

  and there is no end to their getting;

¹⁸those who schemed to get silver, and were anxious,

  but there is no trace of their works?

¹⁹They have vanished and gone down to Hades,

  and others have arisen in their place.

²⁰Later generations have seen the light of day,

  and have lived upon the earth;

but they have not learned the way to knowledge,

  nor understood her paths,

  nor laid hold of her.

²¹Their descendants have strayed far from her^a way.

²²She has not been heard of in Canaan, or seen in Teman;

²³the descendants of Hagar, who seek for understanding on the earth,

  the merchants of Merran and Teman,

  the story-tellers and the seekers for understanding,

have not learned the way to wisdom,

  or given thought to her paths.

²⁴O Israel, how great is the house of God,

  how vast the territory that he possesses!

²⁵It is great and has no bounds;

  it is high and immeasurable.

²⁶The giants were born there, who were famous of old,

  great in stature, expert in war.

²⁷God did not choose them,

  or give them the way to knowledge;

²⁸so they perished because they had no wisdom,

  they perished through their folly.

²⁹Who has gone up into heaven, and taken her,

  and brought her down from the clouds?

³⁰Who has gone over the sea, and found her,

  and will buy her for pure gold?

³¹No one knows the way to her,

  or is concerned about the path to her.

³²But the one who knows all things knows her,

  he found her by his understanding.

The one who prepared the earth for all time

  filled it with four-footed creatures;

³³the one who sends forth the light, and it goes;

  he called it, and it obeyed him, trembling;

³⁴the stars shone in their watches, and were glad;

  he called them, and they said, “Here we are!”

  They shone with gladness for him who made them.

³⁵This is our God;

  no other can be compared to him.

³⁶He found the whole way to knowledge,

  and gave her to his servant Jacob

  and to Israel, whom he loved.

³⁷Afterward she appeared on earth

  and lived with humankind.

4

She is the book of the commandments of God,

  the law that endures forever.

All who hold her fast will live,

  and those who forsake her will die.

²Turn, O Jacob, and take her;

  walk toward the shining of her light.

³Do not give your glory to another,

  or your advantages to an alien people.

⁴Happy are we, O Israel,

  for we know what is pleasing to God.

⁵Take courage, my people,

  who perpetuate Israel's name!

⁶It was not for destruction

  that you were sold to the nations,

but you were handed over to your enemies

  because you angered God.

⁷For you provoked the one who made you

  by sacrificing to demons and not to God.

⁸You forgot the everlasting God, who brought you up,

  and you grieved Jerusalem, who reared you.

⁹For she saw the wrath that came upon you from God,

  and she said:

Listen, you neighbors of Zion,

  God has brought great sorrow upon me;

¹⁰for I have seen the exile of my sons and daughters,

  which the Everlasting brought upon them.

¹¹With joy I nurtured them,

  but I sent them away with weeping and sorrow.

¹²Let no one rejoice over me, a widow

  and bereaved of many;

I was left desolate because of the sins of my children,

  because they turned away from the law of God.

¹³They had no regard for his statutes;

  they did not walk in the ways of God's commandments,

  or tread the paths his righteousness showed them.

¹⁴Let the neighbors of Zion come;

  remember the capture of my sons and daughters,

  which the Everlasting brought upon them.

¹⁵For he brought a distant nation against them,

  a nation ruthless and of a strange language,

which had no respect for the aged

  and no pity for a child.

¹⁶They led away the widow's beloved sons,

  and bereaved the lonely woman of her daughters.

¹⁷But I, how can I help you?

¹⁸For he who brought these calamities upon you

  will deliver you from the hand of your enemies.

¹⁹Go, my children, go;

  for I have been left desolate.

²⁰I have taken off the robe of peace

  and put on sackcloth for my supplication;

I will cry to the Everlasting all my days.

²¹Take courage, my children, cry to God,

  and he will deliver you from the power and hand of the enemy.

²²For I have put my hope in the Everlasting to save you,

  and joy has come to me from the Holy One,

because of the mercy that will soon come to you

  from your everlasting savior.^a

²³For I sent you out with sorrow and weeping,

  but God will give you back to me with joy and gladness forever.

²⁴For as the neighbors of Zion have now seen your capture,

  so they soon will see your salvation by God,

which will come to you with great glory

  and with the splendor of the Everlasting.

²⁵My children, endure with patience the wrath that has come upon you from God.

Your enemy has overtaken you,

  but you will soon see their destruction

  and will tread upon their necks.

²⁶My pampered children have traveled rough roads;

  they were taken away like a flock carried off by the enemy.

²⁷Take courage, my children, and cry to God,

  for you will be remembered by the one who brought this upon you.

²⁸For just as you were disposed to go astray from God,

  return with tenfold zeal to seek him.

²⁹For the one who brought these calamities upon you

  will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation.

³⁰Take courage, O Jerusalem,

  for the one who named you will comfort you.

³¹Wretched will be those who mistreated you

  and who rejoiced at your fall.

³²Wretched will be the cities that your children served as slaves;

  wretched will be the city that received your offspring.

³³For just as she rejoiced at your fall

and was glad for your ruin,

so she will be grieved at her own desolation.

³⁴I will take away her pride in her great population,

  and her insolence will be turned to grief.

³⁵For fire will come upon her from the

Everlasting for many days,

  and for a long time she will be inhabited by demons.

³⁶Look toward the east, O Jerusalem,

  and see the joy that is coming to you from God.

³⁷Look, your children are coming, whom you sent away;

  they are coming, gathered from east and west,

at the word of the Holy One,

  rejoicing in the glory of God.

5

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,

  and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.

²Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;

  put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;

³for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.

⁴For God will give you evermore the name,

  “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.”

⁵Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;

  look toward the east,

and see your children gathered from west and east

  at the word of the Holy One,

  rejoicing that God has remembered them.

⁶For they went out from you on foot,

  led away by their enemies;

but God will bring them back to you,

  carried in glory, as on a royal throne.

⁷For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low

  and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,

  so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.

⁸The woods and every fragrant tree

  have shaded Israel at God's command.

⁹For God will lead Israel with joy,

  in the light of his glory,

  with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

1.1–14: Historical introduction. 1: Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe (Jer 36.4,15; 45.1). The genealogy here is more extensive than in Jer 32.12. 2: Fifth year, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 bce (2 Kings 25.8–12) by the Babylonians (the Chaldeans). 3–4: Cf. Jer 36.10. 3: Jeconiah, also called Jehoiachin, was regarded by the exiles as king (2 Kings 24.15; 25.27–30; Jer 24.1; Ezek 1.2). 4: Sud, otherwise unknown; perhaps a corruption of “Sur,” the name of this river in the Syriac of this verse. In a text of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Apocryphon of Jeremiah C), a letter from Jeremiah is read by the river Sur (4Q389 1 7; cf. Let Jer 1; 2 Macc 2.1–3). 5: In the book of Baruch the word Lord occurs only in 1.1–3.8. 6: They collected, see Ezra 1.4,6. 7: The high priest Jehoiakim, otherwise unknown. The Greek reads “the priest.” The genealogy may derive from 1 Chr 6.13–15. 8: Sivan, the third month of the Jewish calendar (May-June). This verse does not agree with Ezra 1.7–11, which states that Sheshbazzar returned the gold and silver vessels to Jerusalem after the edict of the Persian king Cyrus (538 bce). Zedekiah, the king of Judah when Jerusalem fell (2 Kings 24.18–25.7). 2 Kings never reports that Zedekiah fashioned Temple vessels. 9: Jer 24.1; 2 Kings 24.10–16. 10–14: Instruction that accompanies the scroll sent by exiles to the Jews who remained in Jerusalem. 10: Jer 41.5 indicates that incense and grain offerings continued at the ruined Temple; cf. Jer 17.26. 11: See Jer 29.7. Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, who was the successor of Nebuchadnezzar. Dan 5 makes the same error.

1.15–3.8: Confession of sin. This prayer draws on numerous biblical texts, including Lev 26, Deut 28, and parts of Jeremiah. It also has many links with Dan 9.4–19. Bar 1.15–2.5 appears to be intended for the Jewish community in Palestine and 2.6–3.8 for Jews in exile; compare 1.15–16 and 2.13–14. 1.15–18: The Jews in Judah confess their disobedience to God and his commandments (Dan 9.7–10). This refrain is similar to 2.6–10. 15: Open shame, repeated in 2.6. See Dan 9.7–8; Ezra 9.7. 18: 2.10; Dan 9.10.

1.19–2.5: Israel's disobedience is given a historical context, from the Exodus to the Babylonian exile. 19: 2 Kings 21.15; Jer 7.25. 20: Curse, Lev 26; Deut 28; Jer 11.3–5. 21: Jer 7.25–26; 26.4–5; Dan 9.5–6,10. 22: 2.8. 2.1–2: Dan 9.12–13. 3: Lev 26.29; Deut 28.53; Jer 19.9; Lam 4.10. 5: Deut 28.13. 6–10: Confession of guilt. See 1.15–18; Dan 9.12–14. 11–26: Supplication and confession. 11–14: Dan 9.15–17. 11: Ex 15.11–16; Jer 32.20–21. 12: Cf. 1 Kings 8.47 and Ps 106.6. 13: Deut 4.27; Jer 42.2. 15: Cf. Deut 28.10. 16: Deut 26.15; 1 Kings 8.39; Isa 63.15; Dan 9.18. 17: Pss 6.5; 30.9; Isa 38.18; Sir 17.27–28. Hades, in Heb “Sheol,” the underworld abode of the dead. 18: Deut 28.65–66. 21: Jer 27.11–12. 23: Jer 7.34; 16.9; 33.10–11. 24: Jer 8.1–2. 25: Jer 36.30. 26: Jer 7.14. 27–35: Repentance and restoration illustrate God's compassion for Israel. The words attributed to Moses in vv. 29–35 have no verbatim match in the Hebrew Bible but resemble phrases from Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. 29: Deut 28.58,62. 30: 1 Kings 8.47. 31: Jer 24.7. 34: Lev 26.42–45; Deut 30.1–5; Jer 32.37. 35: Jer 24.6; 32.38–40. 3.1–8: Appeal to God to hear the prayer of the exiles. 4: The Greek word dead (see textual note a) may represent the confusion of two similar Hebrew words, one meaning “dead” and another “men.” Note, however, that elsewhere in the book exile is symbolically depicted as a form of death (3.10–11). 7: 1 Kings 8.47–48. 8: 2.4. The exile is punishment for sins committed by earlier generations (2.33; 3.4–5; Ex 20.5; 34.7; Lam 5.7; cf. Jer 31.29–30; Ezek 18).

3.9–4.4: Wisdom poem. Wisdom, personified as a woman, is elusive but known to God, who gave her to Israel as the Torah. This section has many affinities with Sir 24 and Job 28. 3.9–14: Introduction to the poem, exhorting Israel to learn wisdom. 9: The commandments of life, Deut 30.15–20; Sir 45.5. 10: This verse connects the Wisdom poem of 3.9–4.4 to the confession of sin in 1.15–3.8. Growing old, the exile has continued for a long time (contrast 1.2). 10: Defiled with the dead, exile is represented as a kind of death. Corpses communicated ritual pollution that prevented contact with the sacred (cf. Num 19.11–13). 11: Pss 28.1; 88.4. Hades, see 2.17n. 12: Prov 18.4; Jer 2.13; 2 Esd 14.47. 14: Prov 3.2,13–18; Job 12.13.

15–23: Gentile kings and nations do not possess wisdom. 15: Job 28.12,20. 16b–17a: Jer 27.6; Dan 2.37–38; Jdt 11.7. 17b–19: Those who searched for riches were unable to avoid death. The Torah, by contrast, is associated with life (4.1; cf. Prov 3.16,18). 22: Canaan, here probably a reference to the Phoenicians (cf. Gen 10.15), whose coastal cities Tyre and Sidon were associated with wisdom and mercantile skill (Isa 23.8; Ezek 28.3–5; Zech 9.2). Teman, in Edom, a region known for its wisdom (Jer 49.7; Ob 8–9; cf. Gen 36.9–11). 23: The descendants of Hagar, the Ishmaelites, who were Arabian tribal groups with a reputation for trade and commerce (Gen 25.12–15; 37.25). Merran occurs nowhere else in the Bible; it may be a corruption of “Midian,” an area well known for its traders in northern Arabia (Gen 25.2; 37.28; Isa 60.6). 24: The house of God may refer to the created world rather than to the Jerusalem Temple. 26: The giants, the legendary offspring of angels and women in Gen 6.1–4; cf. 1 En. 6–8; Jub. 5. 28: Sir 16.7; Wis 14.6; 3 Macc 2.4. 29–37: Only God has Wisdom, and he gives it to Israel. 29: Deut 30.12–14; cf. Prov 30.4; Sir 24.4. 30: Job 28.14–15. 32: Job 28.23. God finds Wisdom (see v. 36), whereas in Sir 24.3,9 he creates Wisdom (cf. Prov 8.22). 33: The trembling of the light denotes its fear and obedience before God (cf. Gen 1.3; Job 38.35). 34: Job 38.7; Ps 148.3; Sir 43.10. 36: Sir 24.8. 37: Divine Wisdom appears on earth in Prov 8 and Sir 24.6–12 (cf. Wis 1.7; 9.10). Contrast 1 En. 42. 4.1–4: Identification of Wisdom as the Torah, which Israel should embrace. The personification of Wisdom as a woman is prominent in Prov 8 and Sir 24 (cf. Wis 6–9). 1: Prov 3.18; Sir 24.23 (cf. 6.37; 15.1). 2: Jacob, another designation for Israel. 4: Deut 33.29.

4.5–5.9: Poem of consolation. 4.5–8: Introductory exhortation, stressing that God wished to punish, not destroy, Israel because of its sins. 5: Take courage, a refrain of the poem (vv. 21,27,30; cf. Isa 40.1). 6: Isa 50.1b; 52.3. 7: Deut 32.16–17; Ps 106.37. 8: Gen 21.33; Isa 40.28. 9b–16: Personified Jerusalem (Zion) addresses neighboring cities. 9: Lam 1.12. 10: Everlasting, a term for God characteristic of this poem that is not found in other sections of the book of Baruch (vv. 14,20,22,24,35; 5.2). 12: Isa 49.21; 54.4; Lam 1.1. 15: Deut 28.49–50; Isa 33.19. 17–29: Personified Jerusalem speaks to the exiles. 20: Contrast Isa 52.1. Robe of peace, worn during a time of prosperity. Sackcloth, worn in times of mourning and penitence (e.g., Isa 3.24; Jer 6.26; Lam 2.10). 22: The Holy One, a name for God prominent in Isaiah (e.g., 5.19; 12.6; 60.9) and also found in 4.37; 5.5 but not elsewhere in Baruch. 23: Ps 126.6; Isa 35.10; 51.11; Jer 31.12–13. 24: Isa 60.1–3. 25: Deut 33.29; Isa 51.23. The wrath has a short duration (cf. Isa 54.7–8). 4.30–5.9: The narrator consoles Jerusalem with the prospect of the exiles’ return. 30–35: Jerusalem is encouraged by the fall of her enemies, referring to Babylon and perhaps Edom (Ps 137.7–8; Isa 63.1–6; cf. Isa 13–14; 47; Jer 50–51). Contrast the attitude toward Babylon in 1.11–12. 30: The one who named you, see 5.4n. Cf. Isa 51.3. 35: Fire, Jer 51.58; demons, Isa 13.21; 34.14. 4.36–5.4: Jerusalem is exhorted to watch the exiles return from the east. 36–37: See 5.5n. 5.1–2: 4.20; Isa 52.1; 61.3,10; Pss. Sol. 11.7. 4: The renaming of Jerusalem, which marks a change in status, is a theme in the prophetic books (Isa 1.26; 60.14; 62.2–4; Jer 33.16; Ezek 48.35). Righteous Peace, Isa 32.17; 60.17. 5.5–9: A second call for Jerusalem to watch God bring the exiles to her. 5: 4.36; Isa 40.9–11; 43.5; 49.18; 60.4; Pss. Sol. 11.2–3. 6: Isa 49.22; 66.20. 7: Isa 40.4–5; 42.16; Pss. Sol. 11.4. 8: Pss. Sol. 11.5–6.

^a Gk the priest

^b Gk he

^c Gk in the shadow

^a Gk in accordance with what is

^b Gk because we

^a Gk dead

^a Other ancient authorities read their

^a Or from the Everlasting, your savior