Petitioners, Penitents, and Poets by Ariel Feldman Timothy J. Sandoval

Author:Ariel Feldman, Timothy J. Sandoval
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

3.Baruch’s Prayers: A Closer Look

2 Baruch 10:1–12:5: Baruch’s Lament

The first prayer in 2 Baruch is located between the book’s narrative prologue in chapters 1–9 and the first extended dialogue section between God and Baruch in chapters 13–20. Having witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, Baruch and Jeremiah lament and fast together for seven days (9:1). Then God sends Jeremiah away to the exiles in Babylon, whereas Baruch returns to the temple ruins (10:1–5), where he says his prayer (10:6–12:4). The author thus paints a vivid picture of the harrowing scene following the destruction of the city: Baruch and Jeremiah mourn, Jeremiah leaves, and Baruch, now left alone, says the book’s first prayer while sitting on the ruins of the demolished temple. The focus of the scene is on Baruch’s lengthy prayer. After Baruch is done, he continues his fast for another seven days (12:5).

The seven-day fast just before the prayer is a recurring theme in 2 Baruch (9:1–10:1; 21:1). Here, as in other texts, fasting is a feature of mourning and repentance, an embodied practice associated with prayer (2 Sam 12:20; Neh 1:4; Dan 10:2–3).592 It may be a way for Baruch to make himself available for more revelations and possibly induce further visions (4 Ezra 5:13; Ascen. Isa. 2:7–11), though this is not as clear.593

Baruch’s first prayer in 10:6–12:4 is a lament over Jerusalem: “And I lamented this lamentation over Zion (10:5; cf. Ezra’s lament over Jerusalem in 4 Ezra 10:19–24). Bogaert regards the poem as one of the two qinot, or dirges, in 2 Baruch (of Hebr. “elegy, dirge;” cf. Amos 5:1; Jer 7:29).594 The prayer itself can be broken down into the following four components:595

Introduction: Call to Lament

10:6–7 Happy are the unborn, cursed the living

10:8 An invitation for demons to join in the lament

Cessation of the Natural and Social Order

10:9–12 Call to the natural world to stop producing its fruit

10:13–17 A call for weddings to cease and for women no longer to bear children

Return to God what is God’s

10:18–19 A call to the priests to return the temple keys to God, and to the virgins to return their fine linen and silk to the Creator

Babylon and Jerusalem

11:1–3 Babylon prospers, while Jerusalem is devastated

11:4–7 Happy are the deceased ancestors

12:1–4 Oracle against Babylon

In many respects, Baruch’s lament over the fallen city is reminiscent of the book of Lamentations (Lam 1:1; 4:9), and, even more so, of Mattathias’s lament over the defiled temple in 1 Maccabees (“Alas. Why was I born to see this, the ruin of my people, the ruin of the holy city?” [1Macc 2:7]). It has noticeably less in common with the individual laments in the biblical Psalter.596 The main themes are divided into the four main parts of the prayer. First, Baruch praises the dead who, unlike the living, do not have to witness Jerusalem’s destruction (cf. 4 Ezra 4:12; 5:35).597 The blessing for the deceased is repeated in 11:7, so that 10:6 and 11:7 form an envelope structure around the prayer. Bogaert calls this the “Leitmotiv” of the prayer.

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