Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 3 ▾
City of God 2× 26, 35 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1× 38 Dei Verbum (On Divine Revelation) 1× 38
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325 Codex Alexandrinus A c. AD 400-440
What is Baruch 3 about?

Still in the posture of prayer, the exiles cry out from their anguish, owning the sins of their fathers and asking the Lord Almighty to remember them and not the transgressions of past generations. Attention then turns to a poem in praise of wisdom, which asks why Israel languishes in an enemy land and answers that the people have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. Neither the rulers of the nations, nor the giants of old, nor the merchants and seekers of understanding found the way to her; God alone knows her path, and He gave her to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Identifying wisdom with the God who searches out all things, the chapter calls the exiles to see that their restoration lies in returning to Him who is the source of true understanding.

Historical backdrop

The book sets itself in Babylon among the exiles of Judah, in the years after Nebuchadnezzar broke Jerusalem and burned the temple. It speaks from beside the great rivers of Mesopotamia, in the shadow of a city whose gods rode in procession, idols of silver and gold that its people carried on their shoulders and could not carry themselves. The appended letter turns that idolatry to scorn, and the whole reaches back to the exile as the school where Israel learned again to hope in the God who has no image.

The Church Fathers on Baruch 3
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Baruch 3

Baruch Chapter 3
3
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What is Baruch 3 about?

Still in the posture of prayer, the exiles cry out from their anguish, owning the sins of their fathers and asking the Lord Almighty to remember them and not the transgressions of past generations. Attention then turns to a poem in praise of wisdom, which asks why Israel languishes in an enemy land and answers that the people have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. Neither the rulers of the nations, nor the giants of old, nor the merchants and seekers of understanding found the way to her; God alone knows her path, and He gave her to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Identifying wisdom with the God who searches out all things, the chapter calls the exiles to see that their restoration lies in returning to Him who is the source of true understanding.