Jeremiahchapter 45
5 verses · Jeremiah, written by Baruch · 7th to 6th century BC · The Prophets
But as for you, do you seek great things for yourself? Stop seeking! For I will bring disaster on every living creature, declares the LORD, but wherever you go, I will grant your life as a spoil of war.”
Introduction
Jeremiah, written by Baruch, The Prophets, Jeremiah Overview.
This is the shortest chapter in Jeremiah, and it is addressed to one man, Baruch son of Neriah, the scribe who wrote the prophet's words down. It is dated years before the chapters around it, to the season when Baruch first put Jeremiah's sermons on a scroll. He was a man of a respected family who had tied his future to an unpopular prophet. Listen for his complaint, given in his own words, and for the LORD's reply, which is personal and brief. The book sets it here as a word to every faithful helper who is tired.
Context
- Who
- One man, and every assistant since who wondered whether his own work counted
- What
- A short word from the LORD to Baruch in answer to his complaint of grief and exhaustion.
- Where
- Jerusalem, where Baruch wrote the prophet's words on the scroll described in chapter 36.
- When
- The fourth year of Jehoiakim, 605 BC, as the chapter's own heading states.
- Why
- To correct Baruch's hope for great things in a time of judgment and to promise him his life wherever he went.
Historical context
This is the shortest chapter in the book and it is addressed to one person. Baruch son of Neriah has just written a scroll from dictation covering twenty-three years of preaching, and the year is the year of Carchemish, when Babylon became the power that would end his country.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Baruch came from a family of standing. His brother Seraiah served as a senior officer in Zedekiah's court, which suggests a scribal family close to government, and makes his choice of employer look like a career thrown away.
His complaint is quoted: woe is me, for the LORD has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning and I find no rest. That is a man who has spent weeks writing out the destruction of everything he knows.
The answer is bracing rather than soothing. What I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up, that is, the whole land, and do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them. The one promise given is that his life will be given to him as a prize of war, the phrase used for what a soldier walks away with when everything else is lost.
Significance
The first readers of this chapter had it placed here, at the close of the Jeremiah narrative, as a kind of signature. The assistant gets his own oracle in the book he wrote.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The word to him is the one every ordinary person in a collapsing country needed. In a season when God is pulling down what he built, ambition is the wrong instrument. Your life, kept, is the whole of the promise, and it is enough.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the third verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 11:2.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern, and his headwords, which carry the verse in that translation's wording, are never quoted.
Rashi reads Baruch's complaint as a disciple's grief. The rest he did not find is prophecy: "The Shechinah has not rested upon me to prophesy." Joshua served Moses and Elisha served Elijah, and the spirit rested on each of them. "Why am I different from the disciples of the prophets?" (Rashi on Jeremiah 45:3:1).
The great things Baruch sought are "prophecies" (Rashi on Jeremiah 45:5:1). The answer comes from the Mekhilta: "If there is no vineyard, there is no fence, and if there are no sheep, there is no shepherd" (Rashi on Jeremiah 45:5:1). God reveals Himself to the prophets for the people's sake, "I reveal Myself to the prophets only in the merit of Israel" (Rashi on Jeremiah 45:5:1). The land that is being uprooted is the whole land under judgment (Rashi on Jeremiah 45:4:1).
The corpus carries ten further notes on this chapter without an English text. Each is marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref, so each is cited here and none is quoted. The notes of Malbim are cited at Malbim on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1 and 45:4:1. The notes of Metzudat David are cited at Metzudat David on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1, 45:4:1 and 45:5:1. The notes of Radak are cited at Radak on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1 and 45:4:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries eleven rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 53:6. On the third verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:31, Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 2:9:6, Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 1:3:4, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 1:24, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 49:27:44 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 11:2. It holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187:2 there as well. On the fourth verse it holds Sifra, Bechukotai, Chapter 4 1. The corpus also prints two locators anchored past the chapter's last verse, the fifth, cited here with the anchor it gives. It prints Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Akiba, Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiba (Version 1) 22 at Jeremiah 45:15. It prints Megillah 27a:15 at Jeremiah 45:18. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Jeremiah 45:3:1 to 45:5:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1 and 45:4:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1, 45:4:1 and 45:5:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Jeremiah 45:1:1, 45:3:1 and 45:4:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/jeremiah/45.json, the 11 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion and no Haftarah for this chapter and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes, each with the verses it covers.
Baruch's Complaint: Woe Is Me Now, I Find No Restvv. 1-3
This is the word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Neriah: This word is dated to “the fourth year of Jehoiakim,” when Baruch wrote the scroll of chapter 36. Baruch’s complaint is recorded: “Woe is me because the LORD has added sorrow to my pain!” It is set down as Jeremiah’s own complaints are in chapters 11 to 20.
Jeremiah 45:1
“The word that Jeremiah - spake unto Baruch - This is another instance of shameless transposition. This discourse was delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, several years before Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans. It is a simple appendage to chap. 36, and there it should have been inserted.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 45:2
“Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch. Whom he knew by name, had a great regard for, and honours with this prophecy; and, being an Israelite, both in a literal and spiritual sense, he addresses him as the God of Israel, and as being his covenant God; in whom he should put his trust, and from whom he might expect safety and protection in the worst of times; and to whose sovereign will, in all the dispensations of his providence, he ought to have humbly and patiently submitted.”
Jeremiah 45:3
“Grief to my sorrow - Baruch’s sorrow is caused by the sinfulness of the Jewish nation, to which God adds grief by showing how severely it will be punished. I fainted in - Or, “am weary with” Psa 6:6.”
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 45:3
“I find no rest - Upon Baruch's reading the prophecies both he and Jeremiah were advised to hide themselves. This probably disturbed Baruch, and made him lament his condition.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 45:3
“The consternation that poor Baruch was in when he was sought for by the king's messengers and obliged to hide his head, and the notice which God took of it. He cried out, Woe is me now!”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Seek Not Great Things for Thyself: Thy Life as a Prizevv. 4-5
The answer sets Baruch’s grief inside the ruin: “I will demolish what I have built and uproot what I have planted.” Baruch is rebuked for seeking “great things for yourself”. The promise, “I will grant your life as a spoil of war,” is the one given to Ebed-melech in 39:18.
Jeremiah 45:4
“Behold, that which I have built - I most certainly will fulfill all those threatenings contained in the roll thou hast written; for I will destroy this whole land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 45:5
“And seekest thou great things for thyself? - Nothing better can be expected of this people: thy hopes in reference to them are vain. Expect no national amendment, till national judgments have taken place. And as for any benefit to thyself, think it sufficient that God has determined to preserve thy life amidst all these dangers. But thy life will I give unto thee for a prey - This is a proverbial expression. We have met with it before, Jer 21:9, Jer 38:2, Jer 39:18; and it appears to have this meaning.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 45:5
“Dost thou expect to be rich and honourable and to make a figure now? "It is absurd for thee to be now painting thy own cabin. Canst thou expect to be high when all are brought low, to be full when all about thee are empty?" To seek ourselves more than the public welfare, especially to seek great things to ourselves when the public is in danger, is very unbecoming Israelites.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 45:5
“But the reason I have stated ought to be borne in mind, that this book we have now in our hands was not written by Jeremiah himself, but that it contains collected summaries, afterwards formed into one volume. Here is told us a special prophecy concerning Baruch, who, as we know, was the Prophet's scribe, and not only his scribe or amanuensis, but also his disciple.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Keep studying
Words8
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.