An Atheist Explores the Apocrypha Part 28: Life Under The Babylonians. Plus: Jerusalem The Widow (Baruch 1-5)
Baruch 1-5
Life Under The Babylonians. Plus: Jerusalem The Widow.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts
(Apocrypha version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old
Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as
literature and mythology.
Baruch 1
“And these are the words of the book, which Baruch the son
of Nerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Asadias, the son
of Chelcias, wrote in Babylon”
In the fifth year after the Chaldeans burned the
Temple, Baruch reads this book to “Jechonias”
(aka Jekoniah) and “in the hearing of the
nobles, and of the king's sons, and in the hearing of the elders, and of all
the people, from the lowest unto the highest, even of all them that dwelt at
Babylon by the river Sud”. Now, I’ve got a feeling the Jekoniah was the
puppet king installed by Nabuchadnezzar, so these would be the now-Babylonian
subjects still left in the now-Babylonian province of Judah, and not the
captives in Babylon itself. I’m still not entirely clear on how many people got
moved around where at this point, perhaps Baruch will clarify a bit.
This (the reading) makes the people weep and pray, and
they raise a collection to replace the lost treasures of the temple. It seems
to be implied that they also managed to restore some of the actual plunder as
well – “At the same time when he received
the vessels of the house of the Lord, that were carried out of the temple, to
return them into the land of Juda, the tenth day of the month Sivan, namely,
silver vessels, which Sedecias the son of Josias king of Jada had made”.
It’s a little confusing in that the high priest is Joachim, which is also the
name of Jekoniah’s father.
It’s also a bit confusing in that, if these are the
words that Baruch speaks to the people, then why do they also contain the
results of that speech? Perhaps the actual words are the bulk of the rest of
the chapter, wherein for one thing the people tell Joachim the priest that the
money is to cover all kinds of offerings, including prayers for Nabuchanezzar
and his son (Belshazzar), which seems uncharacteristically appeasing. The rest,
however, is all about how the people have failed God and are asking Him for His
forgiveness and promise to be very good in future.
Baruch
2
“Therefore the Lord hath made good his word, which he
pronounced against us, and against our judges that judged Israel, and against
our kings, and against our princes, and against the men of Israel and Juda”.
Throughout this chapter the author (Baruch?) grapples
with the issue of why Jerusalem should have been conquered and sacked by the
Babylonians when the Israelites (properly, the Judeans now) are supposed to
have been promised prosperity by God.
Clearly, the author concludes, it’s because the people
have been wicked and this is a just punishment from God – “Thus we were cast down, and not exalted, because we have sinned against
the Lord our God, and have not been obedient unto his voice”. This seems to
have been written while the Jews were still under Babylonian rule, since it
becomes a humble supplication to God to help them – “Let thy wrath turn from us: for we are but a few left among the
heathen, where thou hast scattered us”. I guess that would be right, if
Nabuchanezzar is still king and the Babylonians have not yet been conquered by
the Greek Persians (I forget, the Seleucids?) of Darius and Cyrus.
So, unlike some of the more dramatic Exilic writing,
it’s clear here that there’s still a population in Jerusalem, it’s just a much
reduced and constrained one, where “a man
should eat the flesh of his own son, and the flesh of his own daughter” and
the people are “are cast out to the heat
of the day, and to the frost of the night, and they died in great miseries by
famine, by sword, and by pestilence”.
Apparently this is all God’s plan (such a loving God),
because “I knew that they would not hear
me, because it is a stiffnecked people: but in the land of their captivities
they shall remember themselves”. Once the people learn from their mistakes
and humbly submit before God, then God promises to restore them to their former
glory. I think I commented before on how weird this relationship is. The
Israelites continue to disappoint God, God punishes them sporadically, then
everyone goes back to thinking that this is a good and healthy relationship. It
isn’t.
Baruch
3
“How
happeneth it Israel, that thou art in thine enemies' land, that thou art waxen
old in a strange country, that thou art defiled with the dead”
Baruch goes full-on lamentation in this chapter. After
some initial praise to God (“Hear, O
Lord, and have mercy; for thou art merciful: and have pity upon us, because we
have sinned before thee” and so on), Baruch asks the question of why the
Israelites could have fallen so far when they were chosen by God over all
other, and seemingly better, candidates, including the Antediluvian Giants - “There were the giants famous from the
beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert in war. Those did not
the Lord choose, neither gave he the way of knowledge unto them: But they were
destroyed, because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own
foolishness.”
Wisdom, Baruch says, is the key, and only God truly
has it (and, I guess, by extension only those who worship God can hope to be
granted it). “Who hath gone up into
heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds?” asks Baruch –
the “her” in question being the personification of Wisdom as a woman, much like
we saw in Ecclesiasticus. Only God, “he
that knoweth all things knoweth her, and hath found her out with his
understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore hath filled it with
fourfooted beasts”.
As a comparison, Baruch contrasts the getting of
wisdom with more earthly pursuits such as hawking or making silver artefacts.
Princes of the heathens and fine silversmiths, “are vanished and gone down to the grave, and others are come up in
their steads”. Instead one should “Learn
where is wisdom, where is strength, where is understanding; that thou mayest
know also where is length of days, and life, where is the light of the eyes,
and peace”.
Baruch
4
“Ye
have forgotten the everlasting God, that brought you up; and ye have grieved
Jerusalem, that nursed you.”
After a few opening lines concerning how the Jews are
lucky because they’ve been given a book of what is pleasing to God (but forgot
to follow it and so had to be conquered for their own good), the rest of the
chapter is given as the words of Jerusalem, personified as a grieving widow.
It’s a pretty good poetic lament, full of admonishment
for the people – “Let no man rejoice over
me, a widow, and forsaken of many, who for the sins of my children am left
desolate; because they departed from the law of God” but also an element of
hope – “Be of good cheer, O my children,
cry unto the Lord, and he will deliver you from the power and hand of the
enemies”. That’s really about it, a message that we’ve seen before. The
Israelites were enslaved because they turned away from God, but they will be
saved if they turn back to God. It’s a neat psychological trick to turn the
blame away from the apparently perfect God and onto the imperfect people,
because otherwise how could God’s promised kingdom have been conquered by “a nation upon them from far, a shameless
nation, and of a strange language, who neither reverenced old man, nor pitied
child”.
There’s a prophecy of doom on the Babylonians at the
end – “For fire shall come upon her from
the Everlasting, long to endure; and she shall be inhabited of devils for a
great time”. That … didn’t really happen, so this is evidently written
prior to the conquest by the Graeco-Persians. Because although the nation is
conquered, it isn’t destroyed (and, really, predicting that a nation will be
conquered by another in that particular time and place is like predicting that
sun will rise the next morning).
Baruch
5
“Put
off, O Jerusalem, the garment of mourning and affliction, and put on the
comeliness of the glory that cometh from God for ever.”
Baruch finishes with a short chapter about the good
things to come – “For thy name shall be
called of God for ever The peace of righteousness, and The glory of God's
worship” – mainly the return of the exiles from Babylon in the East – “For they departed from thee on foot, and were
led away of their enemies: but God bringeth them unto thee exalted with glory,
as children of the kingdom”. God will level the ground before them and give
them shade with trees to make their journey back to Jerusalem an easy one.
Apart from the possibility to misread talk of a “Holy
One” in the East as being some kind of messianic reference (it obviously
isn’t), this is a fairly straightforward poetic ending to the book.
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