Chapter One

Bar 1:1-14. Preface. Bar 1:15-22. The Penitential Prayer of the Exiled Jews.

Baruch 1:1. The words of the book which Baruch, the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, son of Zedekiah, son of Asadiah, son of Hilkiah, wrote in Babylon. Bar 1:1-14. At the beginning Baruch relates that as soon as he finished his book, he read it aloud in Babylon to King Jeconiah and other Jewish exiles living in Babylon. The impression made by this book was very strong. The Jews wept, fasted, and prayed, and then sent the book, together with donations, to High Priest Jehoiakim and other Jews in Jerusalem, and asked for their prayers before God. They also asked that the book itself be read to the people remaining in Jerusalem on feast days.

Baruch 1:2. In the fifth year, on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burned it with fire. 2. “At the time” should be more correctly rendered as “from the time when.” Baruch determines the time of writing his book by a new reckoning of years—from the destruction of Jerusalem. It was the fifth year, the seventh day of the first month (Nisan).

Baruch 1:3. And Baruch read aloud the words of this book to Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and to all the people who came to hear the book. Baruch 1:4. And to the nobles and the sons of the king, and to the elders, and to all the people, from the least to the greatest, all those living in Babylon by the river Sudd. 4. “The river Sudd” is probably a corrupted Hebrew word ‘zad’—proud. The great river Euphrates was probably so named.

Baruch 1:5. And they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord. Baruch 1:6. And they collected silver, as much as each could afford. Baruch 1:7. And they sent to Jerusalem to Jehoiakim, son of Hilkiah, son of Shalom, the high priest, and to the priests and to all the people who were with him in Jerusalem. 7. It is doubtful that a high priest, priests, and a considerable number of Jews were living in Jerusalem at this time. After the murder of Gedaliah, as is known, the Jews moved to Egypt. Naturally, they would have taken the high priest and priests with them.

Baruch 1:8. When Baruch received the vessels taken from the temple of the house of the Lord for their return to the land of Judah, on the tenth day of the month of Sivan, the silver vessels which King Zedekiah, son of Josiah, king of Judah, had made. 8. The sacred vessels, as is known, were returned only upon the liberation of the Jews from captivity under Cyrus (Ezra 1). Therefore, it is doubtful that Baruch also returned some silver vessels to Jerusalem. The month of Sivan—more correctly, the month of Sivan, corresponding to our May.

Baruch 1:9. After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had transferred from Jerusalem Jeconiah and the princes, and the prisoners and the nobles, and the people of the land and brought them to Babylon. Baruch 1:10. And they said: Behold, we are sending you silver, and buy with this silver whole burnt offerings and a sacrifice for sin and frankincense, and prepare a gift, and offer it on the altar of the Lord our God. 10. “Prepare a gift”—in the Greek text, instead of “gift” stands the word manna or manaa. Obviously, the LXX translators were translating the book of Baruch from Hebrew, and the Hebrew word mincha—gift—left without translation, they gave it the form manaa. An altar hardly could have existed at that time. If such an altar had existed, why would Ezra have noted as something new the establishment of an altar by the Jews who returned with Zerubbabel in Jerusalem? (Ezra 3:3).

Baruch 1:11. And pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and for the life of Belshazzar, his son, so that their days may be as the days of heaven upon the earth. 11. Why Belshazzar, the son, is mentioned alongside Nebuchadnezzar is unclear. After Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was ruled by two other kings before Belshazzar—Evil-Merodach and Neriglissar.

Baruch 1:12. And the Lord will give us strength and enlighten our eyes, and we shall live under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and under the protection of Belshazzar, his son, and we shall serve them many days and find mercy with them. 12. “Enlighten our eyes”—that is, will give us joy, which will make our eyes bright and shining.

Baruch 1:13. Pray also for us to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and the wrath of the Lord and His anger have not turned away from us to this day. Baruch 1:14. And read this book which we send you, so that you may make it known in the house of the Lord on feast days and at appointed times. 14. “Appointed times.” This expression is parallel to the preceding one; therefore the standing before it is not a connective particle but an explanatory one.

Baruch 1:15. And say: With the Lord our God is righteousness, but with us is shame upon our faces, as it is today, with every Jew and with those living in Jerusalem. Bar 1:15-22. Here the book of Baruch itself begins. The exiles ask their countrymen remaining in Jerusalem to confess their sins before the Lord, chiefly their disobedience to Him. This prayer almost repeats the same thoughts which the prophet Daniel expresses in his prayer (Dan 9). 15. “Read... and say,” that is, read the following book.

Baruch 1:16. And with our kings, and with our princes, and with our priests, and with our prophets, and with our fathers. 16. The prophets also feel shame before God, as they cannot help but think of themselves as members of the sinful Jewish people.

Baruch 1:17. Because we have sinned against the Lord. Baruch 1:18. And we did not obey Him, and did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God, so as to walk in the commandments of the Lord which He placed before us. Baruch 1:19. From the day when the Lord brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, we have been disobedient before the Lord our God and were careless that we did not listen to His voice. 19. The exiles attribute the cause of their misfortune not to individual violations of divine commandments, but to frequent and stubborn disobedience of the people, beginning from the exodus from Egypt to the beginning of the captivity.

Baruch 1:20. Therefore calamities and curse have overtaken us—as today—which the Lord appointed through His servant Moses on the day when He brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, in order to give us a land flowing with milk and honey. Baruch 1:21. And we did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom He sent to us. Baruch 1:22. And we went, each one, according to the inclinations of our evil heart, serving other gods and doing evil in the sight of the Lord our God. Special Remark. From the contradictions of the Book of Baruch indicated at the beginning of the chapter, we conclude (in the introduction) that this book could hardly have been written by a collaborator of Jeremiah. Archimandrite Antonin (in his work mentioned above) finds it possible, however, to reconcile the statements of the Book of Baruch contained in the first chapter with the history of that time as it is presented in the canonical Sacred Books. He refers, for example, to the proof that in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, there were still Jews there, citing the coming from Shechem of eighty people (Jer 41:5). But this circumstance occurred when the entire remaining body of Jews had not yet gone to Egypt (Jer 43:5-6). Then he also refers to the fact of Nebuchadnezzar’s deportation in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem of 745 people (Jer 52:29-30). But again it is not clearly stated that these people were transferred from Jerusalem itself. Father Antonin somehow interprets the high priest Jehoiakim as the second priest. Then he gives a clearly incorrect interpretation of verses 7–9 (Bar 1:7-9) regarding Baruch’s bringing with him silver vessels from captivity, and Father Antonin attempts to explain this as an error in the Greek translation and gives his own translation of this passage, but the translation is quite unsuccessful. Finally, regarding the mention by Baruch of some unknown son of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Father Antonin tries to explain this by supposing that such a person could have existed in reality. As is evident from this, the doubts raised by the first chapter of the Book of Baruch have not been eliminated by the defenders of the authenticity of this book to the present day.