Baruch - Lesson 3

THE BOOK OF BARUCH
LESSON 3
PART III: A POEM IDENTIFYING WIDSOM WTH THE LAW (3:9-4:4)

Wisdom consists entirely in fearing the Lord, and wisdom is entirely constituted by the fulfilling of the Law.
Sirach 19:20

For Wisdom begins with the sincere desire for instruction, care for instruction means loving her, loving her means keeping her laws, attention to her laws guarantees incorruptibility, and incorruptibility brings us near to God; the desire for Wisdom thus leads to sovereignty.
Wisdom 6:17-20

The poem in Part III is a eulogy of the divine attribute of true Wisdom. The writer personifies wisdom and gives an exhortation addressed to Israel ("Listen Israel" in 3:9). It is stylistically similar to the Wisdom writings in the Old Testament. God gave true wisdom to Israel through the precepts of Mosaic Law, which they forsook (3:9-14). The pagan nations look for wisdom where there is none, believing they can find it in worldly power, wealth, and control over the world's natural resources and animals (3:15-31). They fail to seek true Wisdom from the Lord (3:32-36; cf. Job 28:12-28; Sirach 1:1-10; Wisdom 7:7-14). This part of the book has been most frequently cited by the Church Fathers, like St. Irenaeus, who saw a prophetic foreshadowing of the redemption of humanity through the Incarnation of the Living Word, Jesus Christ, as Wisdom personified in 3:29-4:1 (Demonstratio praedicationis apostolicae, 97).

NJB = New Jerusalem Bible; NABRE = New American Bible Revised Edition. Passages from Baruch are from the NJB. Find the answers to the questions at the end of the lesson.

Baruch 3:9-14 ~ Israel and Wisdom
9 Listen, Israel, to commands that bring life; hear, and learn what knowledge means. 10 Why, Israel, why are you in the country of your enemies, growing older and older in an alien land, defiling yourselves with the dead, 11 reckoned with those who go to Sheol? 12 It is because you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom! 13 Had you walked in the way of God, you would be living in peace for ever. 14 Learn where knowledge is, where strength, where understanding, and so learn where length of days is, where life, where the light of the eyes and where peace.

The exact meaning of the phrase "defiling yourselves with the dead" in verse 10 is a matter for debate among Biblical scholars. It has been suggested that the Greek translator may have misread the Hebrew word nidmeta, meaning "you are like," for nitmeta, the Greek word for "defiling yourselves." Others suggest it may be a hyperbolic expression where the "dead" are the exiles, whose condition is so dire that they might as well be among the dead in Sheol (3:10-11).¹

The writer calls God "the fountain of wisdom" in verse 12. All godly Wisdom comes from the spirit of God (Wisdom 1:4-8).

Question #1: Why were the Jews of Judah defeated by the Babylonians and deported to a foreign country? See Baruch 3:13.
Answer to question 1

In verse 14, the writer describes wisdom using synonyms that show how multilayered it is. Wisdom is "knowledge," "strength," and "understanding." It gives "length of days," "life," "light of the eyes," and "peace." Commenting on these gifts, St. Bonaventure wrote: "Of all the things that guide man's understanding in everything that he does and strives to avoid doing, he should consider most of all the purpose of his life. By his nature, he must hope for something, some gain, from what he does. But if you satisfy yourself with earthly consolations, you will reap a terrible reward. The greatest pearl of all is eternal happiness. Therefore, listen to what is said in Baruch: Learn where there is wisdom ... (3:14)" (St. Bonaventure, De septem donis Spiritus Sancti, 8, 10).

Baruch 3:15-21 ~ The Fleetness of Life
15 But who has found out where she lives, who has entered her treasure house? 16 Where now are the leaders of the nations and those who ruled even the beasts of earth, 17 those who sported with the birds of heaven, those who accumulated silver and gold on which all people rely, and whose possessions had no end, 18 those who worked so carefully in silver—but of whose works no trace is to be fund? 19 they have vanished, gone down to Sheol. Others have risen to their places, 20 more recent generations have seen the day and peopled the earth in their turn, but the way of knowledge they have not found; 21 they have not recognized the paths she treads. Nor have their children had any grasp of her, remaining far from her way.

As in the Book of Wisdom, the inspired writer personifies Wisdom as a woman (cf. Wisdom 1:6; 6:12, 22; etc.).

Question #2: What is the negative answer to the rhetorical question in verse 15? See Job 28:12-28.
Answer to question 2

Holy Wisdom is God's possession; He has enriched His covenant people with His gift of the Law (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Sirach 24:22-23; Baruch 3:24-4:4). Unlike the true Wisdom of God, who is eternally the source of life, everything associated with humankind is temporal, impermanent, and cannot last. Various social categories are listed in verses 16-18: rulers of nations (like King Nebuchadnezzar II), skilled falconers, and the wealthy who hoard their gold and silver. Verse 19 declares they cannot avoid going down to Sheol/Hades at the end of their lives while the next generation rises to take their place. They and their children have failed to recognize the path of godly wisdom (verses 20-21).

Baruch 3:22-28 ~ The Nations Have No Wisdom

22 Nothing has been heard of her in Canaan, nothing has been seen of her in Teman; 23 the children of Hagar in search of worldly wisdom, the merchants of Midian and Teman, the tale-spinners and the philosophers have none of them found the way to wisdom or remembered the paths she treads. 24 How great, Israel, is the house of God, how wide his domain, 25 immeasurably wide, infinitely lofty! 26 In it were born the giants, famous from the beginning, immensely tall, expert in war; 27 God's choice did not fall on these, he did not show them the way of knowledge; 28 they perished for lack of wisdom, perished by their own folly.

God's Wisdom is greater than mortal humans and cannot be found in the nations surrounding Israel despite their reputation for it. Those nations include Canaan, Teman (Edomites/Idumeans), Nabateans and the merchants of Midian (Midianites), Ishmaelites (children of Hagar), and the "giants," among them the Nephelim (Genesis 6:2-4), the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 3:11), the Anakim (Numbers 13:32-33) and the people of the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4-7).² All these, even the giants, perished for lack of godly Wisdom, which is only found in God's Law (Baruch 4:1).

24 How great, Israel, is the house of God, how wide his domain, 25 immeasurably wide, infinitely lofty!
The "house of God" is the Jerusalem Temple, God's dwelling place on earth above the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:10-22; Deuteronomy 12:11-12). His "domain" is the entire universe (Isaiah 66:1).

Wisdom 1:4-8 records: Wisdom will never enter the soul of a wrong-does, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin; for the holy spirit of instruction flees deceitfulness, recoils from unintelligent thoughts, is thwarted by the onset of vice. Wisdom is a spirit friendly to humanity, though she will not let a blasphemer's words go unpunished since God observes the very soul and accurately surveys the heart, listening to every word. For the spirit of the Lord fills the world, and that which holds everything together knows every word said. No one who speaks what is wrong will go undetected, nor will avenging Justice pass by such a one.

The human body is not evil in itself, but it can become the instrument of sin and wrong-doing, thus dominating and corrupting the soul. See what Jesus said about sin and what Saint Paul wrote on the subject of the enslaving power of sin and the power of God the Son to free the sinner:

John 8:34-36 ~ Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if a Son frees you, then you will truly be free" (NABRE).
Romans 7:14-25 ~ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin (NABRE).

Instruction in the Law was delivered by the ordained priestly descendants of Aaron and the Levitical scribes of the Law and placed under the influence of the "holy spirit of instruction" (Wisdom 1:5); see Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 63:10-11; and Wisdom 7:22-26; 9:17-18. Also see Nehemiah 9:20, 30 and Isaiah 63:10-11 which represent the Holy Spirit as Israel's guide in the past and an inner force in Psalm 51:10-11; Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26-27.

Baruch 3:29-31 ~ Wisdom Can Come Only From God
29 Who has ever climbed the sky and seized her to bring her down from the clouds? 30 Who has ever crossed the ocean and found her to bring her back in exchange for the finest gold? 31 No one can learn the way to her, no one can understand the path she treads.

Baruch returns to personifying holy Wisdom as female. He concludes his argument concerning obtaining true wisdom by asking several rhetorical questions and recalling passages from the wisdom texts (cf. Wisdom 9:9-11; Sirach 24:1-8). Humankind cannot attain Wisdom on its own. It can only be obtained from God because it is a divine attribute. The only path to understanding true, godly Wisdom is through instruction by the spirit of God to a receptive heart.

Baruch 3:32-35 ~ The Created World Reflects True Wisdom
32 But the One who knows all discovers her, he has grasped her with his own intellect, he has set the earth firm for evermore and filled it with four-footed beasts, 33 he sends the light "and it goes, he recalls it "and trembling it obeys: 34 the stars shine joyfully at their posts; 35 when he calls them, they answer, "Here we are"; they shine to delight their Creator.

The inspired writer reasserts his belief in One True God, the Divine Creator, who must not be confused with His works "the earth, its creatures, the light, and the stars (cf. Job 9:9; 38:35).

Baruch 3:36-4:4 ~ Israel is the Repository of Godly Wisdom
36 It is he who is our God, no other can compare with him. 37 He has uncovered the whole way of knowledge and shown it to his servant Jacob, to Israel his well-beloved; 38 only then did she appear on earth and live among human beings. 4:1 She is the book of God's commandments, the Law that stands for ever; those who keep her shall live, those who desert her shall die. 2 Turn back, Jacob, seize her, in her radiance make your way to light: 3 do not yield your glory to another, your privilege to a people not your own. 4 Israel, blessed are we: what pleases God has been revealed to us!

God gave Wisdom to Israel through the Mosaic Law. Still, then Wisdom also came to live within human beings (cf. Sirach 24:1, 8-12 and Proverbs 8:22, 32-9:1, 6). St. Gregory of Nyssa saw verse 37 as proof that God looks after humankind: "He has uncovered the whole way of knowledge and shown it to his servant Jacob ... Thus man discovered fire and the tasks that need fire and need no fire, and the work that involves water, and a thousand more discoveries and a thousand ways of working, so that he would lack nothing that helps to sustain his life" (Gregory of Nyssa, De beneficentia, 1).

Like other passages where Wisdom is personified (cf. Proverbs 8:1-36; Wisdom 6:12-25; 9:10; Sirach 15:2-6, etc.), some of the Church Fathers saw in Baruch 3:37 a glimpse of the Incarnation of the Son of God (cf. John 1:14; St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, 4, 20, 5; St John of Damascene, Expositio fidei, 1, 13). The Second Vatican Council referred to this passage from Baruch: "Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17) out of the abundance of his love speaks to men as friends (cf. Ex 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (cf. Bar 3:38), so that he may invite and take them into fellowship with himself" (Dei Verbum, 2). Verses 36-4:4 imply a familial relationship between God and humans and finds its fullest expression in the Incarnation of God the Son.

In Baruch 4:1-4, the poem ends by identifying godly Wisdom with the Torah (Pentetauch), the five books of Moses, and with a plea not to "yield your glory to another" but for Israel to maintain their privileged status as God's blessed covenant people!

Christian members of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus inherit the promises made to Old Covenant Israel. St. Irenaeus wrote: "Whenever and wherever people believe in him and carry out his will and call on his name, Jesus draws near and stands by their side and responds to the petitions they make from the bottom of their heart. When we have been redeemed, we will give thanks to God every day, for in his great, unimaginable, Wisdom he saved us and proclaimed our salvation from the highest heavens: the proclamation was made in the visible coming of the Lord, that is, when he was made man. We have received the salvation that, left to ourselves, we could never have earned. But what is impossible to man is possible to God" (St. Irenaeus, Demonstratio praedicationis apostolicae, 97).

Answers to the questions:
Answer to question #1:
They were taken into exile because they forsook the way of God so He did not protect them. Had they followed Mosaic Law and remained obedient to God and their covenant oath, they "would be living in peace for ever"
(Baruch 3:13).

Answer to question #2:
The negative answer to the rhetorical question in verse 15 is that no one can achieve wisdom unaided (cf. Job 28:12-28). The positive answer follows in Baruch 3:16-31.

Endnotes:
1. Sheol/Hades (not the Hell of the Damned) was the "abode of the dead." Before the Resurrection of Christ, all the dead, the righteous, and the wicked were consigned to Sheol. The righteous dead awaited the coming of the Redeemer-Messiah in the presence of Abraham while the wicked were punished for their sins in purifying fire (cf. Luke 16:22-26). God promised to bring redemption for the people confined there (Psalm 49:16; cf. 1 Samuel 2:6). On Holy Saturday, Jesus descended into Sheol/Hades to deliver the righteous souls of Old Testament times; He did not deliver the damned (cf. Council of Rome, AD 745; Benedict XI, Cum dudum, AD 1341; Clement VI, Super quibusdum, AD 1351; Council of Toledo IV, AD 625; CCC 632-35). From the time of Christ's Resurrection, all righteous souls go to Heaven, and those who rejected the gift of eternal salvation go to the Hell of the Damned, which Jesus called Gehenna. The Hell of the Damned is mentioned twelve times in the New Testament: seven times in Matthew, three times in Mark, once in Luke, and once in James. Sheol/Hades will continue to exist as a place of purification for those destined for Heaven but in need of further atonement (1 Corinthians 3:11-15) until Christ returns in His Second Advent, followed by the Last Judgment when it is no longer needed, and will be destroyed (Revelation 20:11-15). For other Scripture references, see Psalms 6:5, 16:9-10, 89:48, 139:7-8; Proverbs 5:5, 7:27, 15:11; Job 26:6; Wisdom 16:13 (Hades is Sheol in Greek); Isaiah 38:18; etc.

2. In Genesis 36:11, 15, and 1 Chronicles 1:36, 53, Teman was the son of Eliphaz and a descendant of Esau, the son of Issac and twin brother of Jacob/Israel (Genesis 25:19-28). It is also the name of a region in Edom (Ezekiel 25:13; Amos 1:12), considered to be well-known for the wisdom of its people (Jeremiah 49:7; Obadiah 8-9).

Catechism references:
Baruch 3:11, 19 (CCC 632-35)

John 8:34-36 (CCC 549, 601, 613)

Romans 7:14-25 (CCC 1963, 1995, 2542)