CHAPTER XI

The Book of Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah

[LITERATURE.—Fritzsche, in _Exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen_ (1851); Kneucker, _Das Buch Baruch_, (1879); Gifford, in Wace, II, pp. 241-286; Schürer, II, iii. pp. 188-195, German ed., III, pp. 460-467; Rothstein, in Kautzsch, I, pp. 213-225; Whitehouse, in Charles, I, pp. 569-595. See also the articles by Marshall, in Hastings’ _Dict. of the Bible_, Bevan, in the _Encycl. Bibl._, and Toy, in the _Jewish Encycl._]

I. SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE BOOK, AND ITS CONTENTS

This short pseudepigraph is placed in the Septuagint after the Book of Jeremiah, and before Lamentations, owing to which it is quoted sometimes by the Church Fathers as though it were part of that book.[513] In some of the Greek manuscripts the Epistle of Jeremiah follows Baruch without a break; in the Vulgate, and, following it, the English Versions, it is marked as chapter vi. of Baruch. Swete says that “Baruch and the Epistle occur in lists which rigorously exclude the non-canonical books.”[514] We shall consider the Epistle separately. There was a considerable literature which arose and circulated both before and after the beginning of the Christian era[515]; our book belongs to this literature. It purports to have been written by Baruch, the friend of Jeremiah, in Babylon during the Captivity; and after it had been read there “in the hearing of Jechonias the son of Joakim, king of Judah, and in the hearing of all the people” (i. 3, 4), it was sent to Jerusalem to be read there (i. 14); with it was also sent a collection of money to the high-priest Joakim for the purpose of defraying the expenses of sacrifices (i. 6-10); the people in Jerusalem are also asked to pray for Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, and for his son, Baltasar, as well as for the exiles (i. 11-13). This forms the introduction to the book. Then follows what purports to be the Book of Baruch itself and this consists of two parts:

i. 15-ii. 12: this, which fully bears out the description given of it in i. 14 as a book of confession, begins with an ascription of righteousness to God, after which follows a confession of sin; the past history of the nation is recalled to show that in spite of God’s mercy the people were disobedient to Him and forsook Him; for this reason they are justly suffering for their sins in that they are in subjection to the nations round about them.

ii. 13-iii. 8: a prayer to God for mercy forms the content of this section; but it falls into three divisions; first, a prayer in the real sense of the word (ii. 13-19); then, an historical survey which is largely based on Old Testament passages, especially from the Books of Daniel, Jeremiah and Deuteronomy (ii. 20-35); and, lastly, another prayer combined with confession (iii. 1-8).

So far the book is written in prose, the remainder is in poetry, and consists of two quite independent pieces:

iii. 9-iv. 4: this is a fragment of the Wisdom Literature type; it tells of the reason why Israel is exiled in the land of their enemies, namely because they have forsaken “the fountain of Wisdom”; the people are, therefore bidden to find out where Wisdom is (iii. 14); the mighty rulers of the earth, the wealthy, the skilled—these have not known where Wisdom is to be found (iii. 15-21), nor has it been attained by those of Canaan or Teman (iii. 22, 23); the giants of old knew not Wisdom, they perished in their foolishness (iii. 24-28); no one has gone up to heaven to fetch her, nor gone over the sea to find her, because they do not know her paths (iii. 29-31); only He that knows all things knows Wisdom, and He Who has found out all the ways of knowledge has given Wisdom to Israel, and this Wisdom is the Law that endures for ever (iii. 32-iv. 1); therefore Israel is exhorted to make use of his possession (iv. 2-4).

iv. 5-v. 9: this piece is strongly reminiscent of the second half of Isaiah; it consists of two parts, the first one being an ode of comfort spoken by Jerusalem, personified as a mother, to her children in captivity (iv. 5-35); the second is an ode of comfort spoken to Jerusalem who is bidden to rejoice, for her children are to be led back to her from their captivity (iv. 36-v. 9).

II. EXAMINATION OF THE COMPONENT PARTS OF THE BOOK

It will thus be seen that the book consists of three independent documents: i.-iii. 8, iii. 9-iv. 4, iv. 5-v. 9; and these three differ very much in content. We must now examine them a little more closely in order to ascertain their nature, purpose, and approximate date.

(1) _The Book of Confessions_ (i-iii. 8).

It is stated in i. 2 that the book was written in the “fifth year”; presumably by this is meant the fifth year after the capture of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem was captured in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 587 (2 Kings xxiv. 12-16; 2 Kings XXV. 9), so that our book is assigned either to B.C. 592 or B.C. 582. Both these dates are, however, impossible, for two indications in the book show clearly that the writer utilized the Book of Daniel (early in the Maccabæan era). Thus, the mistake made in Daniel v. 13, etc., where Belshazzar is regarded as the son of Nebuchadnezzar,[516] is repeated in our book, i. 11, 12; so far as is known this mistake does not occur elsewhere, the natural presumption, therefore, is that the writer of Baruch got it from Daniel, especially when, in the second place, we find that both the confession and prayer which make up the whole section, are based upon Daniel ix. 7-19, of which it is an elaboration. Further, that the section cannot belong to the Maccabæan era is sufficiently clear from i. 11, 12, where the people are recommended to pray for their oppressor and to acquiesce in his sovereignty over them; such a recommendation on the part of a Jew during the Maccabæan era, when the people were fighting not only for their country and their homes, but for their religion and for the honour of God, is quite unthinkable. The transference to an earlier historical period than that at which a writer lived is a literary device constructed for one of several reasons, whether for dramatic effect, as in the case of the Book of Judith, where likewise the reign of Nebuchadnezzar is chosen; or for reasons of prudence, as probably in the present case; or because a somewhat parallel set of historical conditions is offered; whatever the reason may be, the procedure is not uncommon and need not occasion surprise. In the present case there are strong grounds for believing that the actual period at which this section of our book was written was during the struggle of the Jews against the Roman power during the years, A.D. 66-70; the reasons for this conclusion are briefly these: Nebuchadnezzar and his son were, according to the belief of the writer of our book, the kings under whom the conquered Jews lived; their names might well stand, therefore, for Vespasian and his son Titus. The Jews are bidden to submit to their conquerors (“Thus saith the Lord, Bow your shoulders to serve the king of Babylon, and remain in the land that I gave unto your fathers,” ii. 21); this accords with what we know was the attitude of the Pharisees towards their Roman conquerors, for they did their best to quiet the people and get them to submit to Rome.[517] Again, the sufferings of the Jews during the war with Rome, described by Josephus,[518] seem to be indubitably referred to in ii. 2, where reference is made to “great plagues, such as never happened under the whole heaven, as it came to pass in Jerusalem”; in ii. 3, where it is said that every man ate the flesh of his own son and of his own daughter; and in ii. 24, 25, where it is said that “the bones of our kings, and the bones of our fathers are taken out of their places; and, lo, they are cast out to the heat by day, and to the frost by night; and they died in great miseries by famine, by sword, and by pestilence.” It is also said in i. 2 that Jerusalem was burnt with fire.[519]

An argument against this late date is that in ii. 17 we have a conception of the future life which is the normal Old Testament belief on the subject, viz.: “For the dead that are in the grave, whose breath is taken from their bodies, will give unto the Lord neither glory nor righteousness”; it is difficult to explain how such a conception can have found expression at the date postulated above, unless we suppose that we have in ii. 17-19 an interpolation by one of the Sadducæan party; it is certainly striking that in verse 19 there is a repudiation of the doctrine of the merits of the fathers, which plays so large a part in the later Jewish theology; the verse runs: “For we do not present our supplication before Thee, O Lord our God, for the righteousness of our fathers, and of our kings”; if in these last words there is an implicit reference to David the passage would be the more strikingly Sadducæan. That the book as a whole, however, can be Sadducæan is out of the question; if for no other reason on account of the penitential spirit contained in it which is quite un-Sadducæan; but that an interpolator has added these verses in the interests of his own school of thought is by no means an impossible explanation of the difficulty (but see below).[520]

The period to which reference is intended in the book, namely the war with Rome, being A.D. 66-70, the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, mentioned in i. 2, will give us the precise date of this portion of our book, viz. A.D. 74 or 75.

But while the actual date of this portion of the book may thus be regarded as fixed, it is necessary to point out that there are cogent reasons for believing that the writer has made use of earlier material. The fact is that the whole piece i. 15-iii. 8 reads remarkably like an extract of a liturgical character; it has all the leading notes which we find so elaborated in the modern Jewish Liturgy, a Liturgy the essential elements of which go back to pre-Christian times.[521] Thus, in the passage under consideration the three outstanding notes are: Praise, Confession of sin (disobedience in not observing the divine commandments), and Prayer for forgiveness (i.e. the turning away of God’s wrath). These all represent what have become technical liturgical terms, viz. _Berakah_ (“Praise,” lit. “Blessing”), _Widdui_ (“Confession”), _Selichah_ (“Forgiveness”). When one studies the modern Jewish Liturgy one sees that it is just in its oldest portions that these three elements are so prominent; for example, the daily Morning Prayer has not only its special psalm of Praise for each day, but contains a large number of _Berakôth_ (“Blessings”) which precede this; while in the great _Amidah_[522] prayer, which forms one of the central parts of the service, the prominent elements are Confession of sin and Prayer for forgiveness. It will be instructive to illustrate this by putting in parallel columns a few quotations from Baruch and the _Amidah_:

_Baruch_ _Amidah_

To the Lord our God belongeth Blessed art Thou, O Lord our righteousness (i. 15) ... God, and God of our fathers ... we have sinned before the Lord, the great, mighty and reverend and disobeyed Him, and have God, the most high God, Who not hearkened unto the voice of bestowest loving-kindnesses, the Lord our God, to walk in the and possessest all things.... commandments of the Lord that He Cause us to return, O our Father, hath set before us (ii. 17, 18). unto Thy Law; draw us near, ... Let thy wrath turn from O our King, unto Thy service, us; for we are but a few left and bring us back in perfect among the heathen, where Thou repentance unto Thy presence. hast scattered us. Hear our Blessed art Thou, O Lord, prayer, O Lord, and our petition, Who delightest in repentance. and deliver us for Thine Forgive us, O our Father, for we own sake.... O Lord, look have sinned; pardon us, O our down from Thine holy house, and King, for we have transgressed; consider us; incline Thine ear, for Thou dost pardon and forgive. O Lord, and hear ... (ii. 13-17). ... Look upon our affliction and plead our cause, and redeem us speedily for Thy name’s sake.... Sound the great horn for our freedom; lift up the ensign to gather our exiles, and gather us from the four corners of the earth.

A detailed consideration of the two shows many more points of contact between them and proves a very close relationship; but this is not the place to go into great detail. Two other points must, however, be touched upon. We suggested above that the passage ii. 17-19 might be an interpolation in the interests of Sadducæan teaching, namely to emphasize the old traditional belief regarding the departed, and to repudiate the doctrine of the merits of the fathers; but the possibility (perhaps even the probability) must be recognized of verse 17 having been original, and having first been altered in accordance with the developed Pharisaic teaching, and then having finally been restored to its original form by a Sadducee. Verse 19, on the other hand, would then have to be regarded as a Pharisaic interpolation altered by the Sadducee, because there would be no point in the repudiation of the doctrine of the merits of the fathers unless the expression of this un-Sadducæan tenet had stood there first; but it is not likely to have stood in the original form of the section because the doctrine is a late one. It is especially interesting and significant that the doctrines contained in these two verses respectively should appear in close proximity in the _Amidah_; let us place the two in parallel columns again:

_Baruch_ _Amidah_

For the dead that are in the Thou, O Lord, art mighty grave, whose breath is taken for ever, Thou quickenest the from their bodies, will give unto dead, Thou art mighty to save.... the Lord neither glory nor Yea, faithful art Thou to righteousness (ii. 17). quicken the dead. Blessed art Thou O Lord, Who quickenest For we do not present our the dead. supplication before Thee, O Lord our God, for the righteous- Blessed art Thou, O Lord ness of our fathers, and of our our God ... Who rememberest kings (ii. 19). the pious deeds of the patriarchs....[523]

The contrast here presented is the more striking on account of the essential similarity of the two pieces in other respects.

The second point which further supports our contention that this section is liturgical in character is that it contains references to the deliverance from Egypt, an invariable element in all forms of the Jewish Liturgy; this occurs three times in the Baruch section; and in the modern Jewish Liturgy it is found, among other places, in the “Benedictions” following the _Shema_,[524] which immediately precedes the _Amidah_. “From Jeremiah xxiii. 7 it seems probable that reference to the deliverance from Egypt in the public services goes back to the time of the first Temple.”[525]

From what has been said, therefore, the supposition seems justified that the section i. 15-iii. 8 is an extract from the Temple Liturgy which has been enlarged by interjected clauses and adapted to the special circumstances of the time, viz. A.D. 74 or 75.

(2) _A Sage’s Words of Encouragement_ (iii. 9-iv. 4).

The entirely different style of writing of both this and the concluding piece from that of the one which we have just considered is of itself sufficient to show that there is a difference of authorship. There is no reference to calamity as in the earlier piece; here it is said of the Israelites that they have “waxen old in a strange country” (iii. 10). The contrast between the mental disquietude of i. 15-iii. 8 and the calm of this section is very marked. The assumed condition of the nation, however, is that of the former section, the nation is in the land of exile. The writer is an imitator of the ancient Sage or Wisdom writer; his word of consolation to the people is that they should learn where Wisdom is (iii. 14); but this Wisdom is “the Law that endureth for ever” (iv. 1); he bids his people reserve this for themselves and not impart it to outsiders; “Give not thy glory to another, nor the things that are profitable unto thee to a strange nation” (iv. 3). Finally, a spirit of contentment breathes in the words: “O Israel, happy are we; for the things that are pleasing to God are made known unto us” (iv. 4).

Now, although the indications of date are not very definite here, one or two points of guidance do appear: there is peace, and the people have been settled for a good while in their exile; therefore the section belongs to a period some time after the destruction of Jerusalem. The writer is a student of the Law, and he writes on Wisdom, and rejoices in the knowledge of the things that are pleasing unto God, and exhorts others to do the same. All these things lead one to suggest that the scene is one of those academies in Babylonia, such as that at Nehardea, which received a considerable influx of Jews from Palestine after the great calamity of A.D. 70; in these they studied in peace and reared up students of the Law. This section (iii. 9-iv. 4), therefore, may quite possibly have been written under these conditions at the commencement of the second century A.D. or even later, though it must have been written not later than about A.D. 150 or thereabouts as the book is quoted by Athenagoras and Irenæus.[526]

Both the sections so far considered were probably written in Hebrew, or in the case of the second in Aramaic; Marshall has given good grounds for the latter contention.[527]

(3) _A Message of Good Cheer_ (iv. 5-v. 9).

This section consists of two divisions, but both have the same object in view and both are in all probability by the same author. The object of them is to cheer the Jewish people who are still pictorially represented as being in captivity (iv. 24). The thought and diction of the first division (iv. 5-35) are largely based on those of the Old Testament; Jerusalem is represented as the mother of the nation who tells her children why they are suffering, namely through their own folly; she does not wish to plunge them into despair by reminding them of this, but only to witness to the facts for her children’s good; she has given herself to prayer, and therefore is convinced that a new era will soon dawn for them. The four times reiterated “Be of good cheer” (iv. 5, 21, 27, 30) distinctly shows the purpose of the poem.

The last division (iv. 36-v. 9) is a message of comfort to Jerusalem herself put into the mouth of God; she is bidden to rejoice because her children are about to return “from the east to the west at the word of the Holy One” (iv. 37). The similarity between this piece and the eleventh of the Psalms of Solomon is striking,[528] so much so that it is worth while putting the parallel passages in juxtaposition:

_Baruch_ _Psalms of Solomon_, xi.

O Jerusalem, look about thee Stand on the height, O Jerusalem, toward the east, and behold thy children, And behold the joy that cometh From the east to the west, unto thee from God. gathered together by the Lo, thy sons come, whom thou Lord (verse 3). sentest away, They come gathered together from the east to the west, Rejoicing in the glory of God (iv. 36, 37). Put off, O Jerusalem, the garment Put on, O Jerusalem, thy of thy mourning and glorious garments; affliction, Make ready thy holy robe ... And put on the comeliness of the (verse 8). glory that cometh from God for ever. Cast about thee the robe of the righteousness which cometh from God ... (v. 1, 2). For God hath appointed that High mountains hath He abased every high mountain, into a plain for them; And the everlasting hills should The hills fled at their entrance. be made low, The woods gave them shelter And the valleys filled up, to as they passed by; make plain the ground, That Israel may go safely in the Every sweet-smelling tree God glory of God. caused to spring up for them, Moreover the woods and every That Israel might pass by in sweet-smelling tree the visitation of the glory Have overshadowed Israel of their God (verses 5-7). (v. 7, 8).

The Psalms of Solomon belong, as we have seen,[529] to about the middle of the last century B.C., and on the supposition that the Baruch passage is dependent on the Psalm (Ryle and James),[530] a _terminus a quo_ is given for the date of the former. The indications in the Baruch passage, however, point to a much later date, and we see no reason to regard the date of this piece as different from that of the section iii. 9-iv. 4, the background of each is a peaceful present and a calm future; the beginning of the second century A.D. may be assigned as approximately the date of this section too.

The original language of the whole of iv. 5-v. 9 is recognized by most scholars as having been Greek from the beginning.

THE EPISTLE OF JEREMIAH

[LITERATURE.—Gifford, in Wace, II, pp. 287-303; Rothstein, in Kautzsch, I, pp. 226-229; Ball, in Charles, I, pp. 596-611.]

In the Vulgate this Epistle appears as the sixth chapter of Baruch; but in the Septuagint it is treated as a separate book and comes after Lamentations with the inscription “Letter of Jeremy,” and a title[531] which runs: “Copy of a letter which Jeremiah sent to those who were about to be led captives by the king of the Babylonians, to give them a message, as it had been commanded him by God.”

It has been thought by some that this letter was suggested by the letter referred to in Jeremiah xxix. 1,[532] which was sent “from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon”; but this seems unlikely because the contents of the letter here spoken of are given in verses 4 ff. of the same chapter. The letter before us is a not very skilfully composed polemic against idolatry based to a large extent upon Jeremiah x. 1-16, Psalm cxv. 4-8, and Isaiah xlix. 9-19; it is also reminiscent of such passages as Wisdom xiii. 10-19, xv. 13-17.

That the writer is seeking to check a real danger, namely that of many of the Dispersion Jews falling into idolatry, seems certain from the obvious earnestness with which he writes; and this, indirect as it is, seems to be the only indication of the date of the writing. For if this danger was real it implies that the time was one of peace for the Jews. We know from 2 Maccabees what was the result of seeking to force an alien religion upon them, but from this letter it is clear that the real danger lay in the allurement which the idol-worship had for many of the Jews, and that their choice was free. In times of stress loyalty to their religious beliefs and customs was always characteristic of the Jews, while when peace and quietude and prosperity was enjoyed by them laxity in religious matters arose. The implication, therefore, is that this letter was written at a time when the Jews were in the enjoyment both of religious liberty and peaceful surroundings. Another implication is that this period of quiet had lasted some time; the danger of which the letter bears witness would have taken some time to develop. Then further, there is no reference to the great calamity of A.D. 70, which affected the Dispersion Jews very deeply from a religious point of view, and which would therefore have been referred to, one may presume, had the letter been written some time soon after this catastrophe. The possibility of its having been written some time before this must be allowed; Marshall holds, for example, that it was written during the first century B.C.[533]; and there is no strong argument against this; the present writer prefers to date it along with the two preceding sections of this book, though he fully realizes the force of Cheyne’s words that “it is hardly possible to fix the date exactly, and unsafe even to say that the epistle was written before 2 Maccabees, the supposed reference to it in 2 Maccabees iii. 1 ff. being disputed.”[534]

The Epistle was, according to the opinion of most scholars, written in Greek; Ball, with much ingenuity and learning, seeks to show that it was written in Hebrew; but very ingenious as many of the instances are which he brings forward to show that the Greek is a translation of either the genuine Hebrew or, in other cases, of a corruption in the Hebrew text, they are by no means always convincing; and while it may be said that he has shown the possibility of its having been translated from Hebrew, it can hardly be said that he has demonstrated the probability of this. The Hebraisms it contains may well be no more than what are characteristic of Hellenistic Greek. If it could be proved that the epistle was written in B.C. 306, as Ball holds, we should have to give up the idea of a Greek original; but in this case we should be at a loss to know why it was not included in the Hebrew Canon.