What does Baruch Chapter 2 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Fulfilled warnings lead to confession and petitions for deliverance. Mercy appeals coexist with remembered commands and desolation. A recalled promise includes return, increase and another covenant.

Chapter breakdown

Baruch 2 confesses fulfillment of the Lord's word against judges, kings, princes, Israel and Juda: unprecedented evils in Jerusalem, including people eating their own sons and daughters, accord with Moses' law. The people become a reproach under surrounding kings because they did not obey. Justice belongs to the Lord and confusion to them and their fathers; they did not entreat him to turn from wickedness. The prayer remembers the Exodus with strong hand, signs, wonders and powerful arm, and asks wrath to turn from the small remnant, deliverance for the Lord's sake and favor before captors, so all earth knows his name over Israel and its posterity.

The prayer asks hearing from the holy house. Its contrast between the dead in hell, whose spirit and bowels are taken, and the sorrowful, bowed, weak-eyed and hungry soul must retain this edition's wording without becoming a universal statement about all the dead or replacing hunger with a spiritual metaphor. The appeal rests on mercy rather than fathers' justices. A prophetic command to serve Babylon and remain in the land is recalled; refusal brings vanished bridal voices and desolation. Exposed bones suffer sun and frost, while famine, sword and banishment accompany death and the temple's present state.

The prayer invokes goodness and mercy and recalls the word through Moses: a small remnant will remember in captivity, receive understanding hearts and hearing ears, praise the Lord's name and recall their fathers' ways. Return to the land sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, mastery and increase follow in the promise. Another everlasting covenant establishes the reciprocal relation of God and people and no further removal. A law written on hearts and permanent divine dwelling are not added to this span.

The story inside

Opening: Fulfilled warnings lead to confession and petitions for deliverance. Development: Mercy appeals coexist with remembered commands and desolation. Conclusion: A recalled promise includes return, increase and another covenant.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Fulfilled warnings lead to confession and petitions for deliverance.
2
Mercy appeals coexist with remembered commands and desolation.
3
A recalled promise includes return, increase and another covenant.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 90565–90584
2:1. Wherefore the Lord our God hath made good his word, that he spoke to us, and to our judges that have judged Israel, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to all Israel and Juda: 2:2. That the Lord would bring upon us great evils, such as never happened under heaven, as they have come to pass in Jerusalem, according to the things that are written in the law of Moses: 2:3. That a man should eat the flesh of his own son, and the flesh of his own daughter. 2:4. And he hath delivered them up to be under the hand of all the kings that are round about us, to be a reproach, and desolation among all the people, among whom the Lord hath scattered us. 2:5. And we are brought under, and are not uppermost: because we have sinned against the Lord our God, by not obeying his voice. 2:6. To the Lord our God belongeth justice: but to us, and to our fathers confusion of face, as at this day.
Lines 90620–90633
2:17. Open thy eyes, and behold: for the dead that are in hell, whose spirit is taken away from their bowels, shall not give glory and justice to the Lord: Justice, etc.... They that are in hell shall not give justice to God; that is, they shall not acknowledge and glorify his justice as penitent sinners do upon earth. 2:18. But the soul that is sorrowful for the greatness of evil she hath done, and goeth bowed down, and feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul giveth glory and justice to thee the Lord. 2:19. For it is not for the justices of our fathers that we pour out our prayers, and beg mercy in thy sight, O Lord our God:
Lines 90674–90696
2:30. For I know that the people will not hear me, for they are a people of a stiff neck: but they shall turn to their heart in the land of their captivity: 2:31. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God: and I will give them a heart, and they shall understand: and ears, and they shall hear. 2:32. And they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and shall be mindful of my name. 2:33. And they shall turn away themselves from their stiff neck, and from their wicked deeds: for they shall remember the way of their fathers, that sinned against me. 2:34. And I will bring them back again into the land which I promised with an oath to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they shall be masters thereof: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished. 2:35. And I will make with them another covenant that shall be everlasting, to be their God, and they shall be my people: and I will no more remove my people, the children of Israel, out of the land that I have given them.