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556 Baruch, Book of Baruch, Baruch

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

" Happy he who 1s not horn, or he who was horn and has died Zion, But wo unto us who live and have seen thy distress, thy fate, O Jerusalem I will call the sirens from the sea and you, ye Liliths, come !

!



from the

jackals,

come

your loins to lament;

make moan "

forth from your forests ; let us sing our sad lay and

Bibuograpiiy: R. H. Charles, Apocalyptic Literature Apocalypse of Baruch), in Encyclopcedia Bihlica, i.

(the 215-

ii. 1368-1370; Dillmann, in Protestaiitische BeaUncyklopildie, 2d ed., xii. 357 et seq.; Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, 1877, pp. 117-132 ; Ewald, History of Israel, viii. 5761; Hilgenfeld, Mcssias Judceorum, 1869, pp. 63 et seq.; Kneucker, Das Buch Baruch, 1879, pp. 190-198 ; Langen, De Apocalypsi Baruch, 1867 ; Eosenthal, Vier Apokryphische Btlcher aus der Zeit unci Schule Akihas, 1885, pp. 72-103 Schurer, Geschichte, 111. 223-232, in pp. 231-232, where a full hibliographv is given: Thomson, Books Tiich Influenced Our Lord and His Apostles, 1891, pp. 253-267, 414-422.

220,

L. G.

T.

BOOK OF

BARTJCH, One of the Apocryphal or so-called deuterocanonic books of the Old TestaIt consists of

two

parts.

The

first

(i.

1-iii.

the form of a prose letter with a historical introduction. Baruch, the secretary of Jeremiah, having written a book, reads it before King Jehoiachin and the exiles in Babylon. The people weep, Then they make a fast, and pray. Contents, collection of money, which they send to Jerusalem to be used for the Temple service, with an injunction to pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and that of Belshazzar, his son, so that the people may dwell in peace under the shadow of these princes (i. 1-14). letter follows, which is presumably the one written by Baruch, although not expressly 8) is in

A

This letter (i. 15-iii. 8) is a confession of national sin, a recognition of the justness of the nation's punishment, and a prayer for mercy. The second part of the book (iii. 9-v. 9), which differs greatly in form and tone from the first, consists of two poems, the first of which (iii. 9-iv. 4) is an exhortation to Israel to learn wisdom, which is described as the source of all happiness, and as " the book of the commandments of God. " The second poem (iv. 5-v. 9) is a picture of the suffering of Israel, and an exhortation to Jerusalem to take heart and await hopefully the salvation of God, Jerusalem being here represented as a desolate widow mourning over the distress of her children. That the first part of the book was originally written in Hebrew is probable, both from the Hebraic character of the diction and from the fact that certain errors in the Greek are explicaOrigin. ble as misunderstandings of Hebrew words thus " manna " (i. 10) is a misreading of "cereal offering" (nnJD); "dead" (iii. 4) is error for "men" (DTIO): "to pay the penalty" (iii. 8), for "dismay" (perhaps HDB*, or " nXt^D read K£5>D) and the enigmatical river " Sud

mentioned as such.



—

possibly an erroneous writing of

is

"

Kebar

133).

The book properly begins (after the superscripThe confession and prayer i. 1, 2) with i. 15. seem to consist of two parts namely, i. 15— ii. 5 and





6-35; and these are possibly (as Marshall holds) two separate productions, the first being the confession of the Palestinian remnant, the second that of Still, "them" (ii. 4, 5), which appears the exiles. to refer to the exiles, may be a scribal slip and it seems more probable that the letter is a juxtaposiVery few scholars tion of two forms of confession. now hold that the book was composed by Jeremiah's secretary, as its relation to the books of Jeremiah and ii.

(x. 6-8)

The Apocalypse is full of truly poetic passages, occurring in the visions and prophecies as well as in the laments. It shows that the Pharisees were not so narrow-minded as the New Testament books, written at the same time, represent them. There were still among them those who could bewail their sorrows with poetic fire, and portray the future in a strain of holy inspiration.

ment.

4)

(-I1D for

tion,

desert.

And ye demons and Arise, gird

(i.

556



Daniel precludes such an origin. The remarkable verbal agreement between the eonfes-

Date and

sion

(i.

15-iii. 8)

and Dan.

ix is

most

Au-

naturally explained by the supposition thorship. that Baruch borrows from Daniel the hypothesis that Daniel borrows from Baruch or that both draw from earlier material being Here, however, a difficulty is enless satisfactory. In ii. 26 the Temple is said to be in countered. ruins a statement which accords with two periods only, those of the Chaldean and the Boman conAs the former period is out of the question, quests. certain scholars, such as Kneucker, for example, assign this part of the book to a time later than the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. It is difficult, however, to reconcile with such a date the view of the dead given in ii. 17, where it is said that those whose spirits have been taken from their bodies will not ascribe honor and righteousness This statement is in accordance to the Lord. with the Old-Hebrew conception of the life in Sheol, which can scarcely have been current after the year 70 of the common era. Hence, in the text as it stands, there are discordant data; but if (as Kneucker holds) ii. 26a is to be rejected as an interpolation, there is no reason why the confession and prayer should not be assigned to the

—

Maccabean

The

time.

and does not readily attach itself to the body of the confession indeed, it appears to have been an afterthought. The singular historical statements Date of (such as that King Zedekiah made First Part, silver vessels), as well as the injunchistorical introduction is confused,

tion to pray for

Nebuchadnezzar and

a late period, and strongly suggest dependence on the Book of Daniel. It is impossible, however, to say how early the view arose that Belshazzar was a son of Nebuchadnezzar. Some recent writers see in the names of the two Babylonian princes an allusion to Vespasian and Titus, which is a plausible assumption if ii. 26a be retained. The date given in i. 2, the "fifth year," is obscure it may mean the fifth year after the fall of Jerusalem (b.c. 581), or, more probably, may be taken from Ezekiel, whose epoch is the fifth year of Jehoiachin's'captivity (b.c. 592). But there is no reason for supposing (as, for example, from Jer. xxix. and li.) that Baruch was ever in Babylon. Belshazzar,

all indicate



Though

there are difficulties in

any hypothesis,

seems probable, upon the whole, that the of

Baruch

is

composed of two

confessions,

first

it

part

which an