BARUCH (Hebr. “blessed”). — Son of Neriah, secretary to Jeremiah (v.), whose oracles he wrote down, and his faithful companion during the siege of Jerusalem (Jer. 32:12–16; 36:4–32; 43:3). For his fidelity to the great prophet, God assured him special protection (Jer. 45:5). After the murder of Gedaliah (v.), he followed Jeremiah to Egypt (Jer. 43:6). It seems that he ended his days among the exiles in Babylon, where he was living in the fifth anniversary year of the fall of Jerusalem (Bar. 1:1–2). On that occasion (581 B.C.), he composed his brief writing, which he then read in the presence of Jeconiah, the penultimate king of Judah, and of the nobles and the people, who were then exiles beside the Sodi, a canal of Babylon (1:3). Thereafter, certain messengers, carrying a collection of money, also brought B.’s little book to Jerusalem, so that the survivors might read it during one of the solemn celebrations (1:6, 14).
BOOK OF B. – First part: after a historical prologue (1:1–15a), a moving prayer (similar to that of Dan. 9:4–20) in which the sins of the fathers and of their children, now exiles through God’s deserved punishment, are acknowledged, and his merciful forgiveness and saving power are implored; supreme and unique wisdom, very different from human wisdom, is praised (1:15b–4:4).
In the second part (4:5–5:6), the prophet first makes Jerusalem speak to her children enslaved among the Chaldeans, and finally addresses words of comfort to the desolate city himself, exalting her future glory and proclaiming the redemption of her children.
Chapter 6, the last, contains a long Letter of Jeremiah, which in the Septuagint follows the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
We possess only the Greek text, from which the ancient versions derive, namely the Syriac pēfiṭṭā (2nd century) and Syro-Hexaplar (7th century) versions, and the Old Latin (2nd century), which passed in its entirety into our Vulgate.
That the book, despite the doubt expressed by s. Girolamo (PL 28, 904), was composed in Hebrew may be inferred from a justificatory note repeated three times in the Syro-Hexaplar version (I, 17; 2:3): “This (passage) is not found in the Hebrew”; this most probably refers to the original Hebrew. Variant readings are sometimes cited from the Teodozione (v.), which was based solely on the Hebrew text. Moreover, in the Greek text of the Septuagint we find some Hebraisms (2:6, 11, 26; 5:6) and even erroneous interpretations due to the Semitic language of the source; for example, 1:22: ἐργάζεσθαι = “to work” instead of “to serve” foreign gods (the Hebrew ābhadh in fact has both meanings); 4:20: “sackcloth of supplication” instead of “sackcloth of penance”; likewise 1:10; 2:18, 25, 29. Moreover, the poetic passages follow the well-known law of Semitic parallelism.