Jeremiah 32:12-16
The deed in the earthen vessel
He takes the sealed purchase and the open copy in front of witnesses and puts them in a clay jar so they will last many days. The siege works are going up outside as he does it.
People of the Bible
Baruch
Wrote the book, read it aloud when the prophet could not, wrote it again after the king burned it.
Baruch son of Neriah is Jeremiah’s scribe, and the account is unusually specific about what he does. He witnesses the deed for the field bought during the siege and puts it in the earthen vessel. He takes dictation for a scroll of everything spoken over more than twenty years, and because Jeremiah is shut up and cannot go, Baruch reads it in the house of the LORD on a fast day, then to the princes, and is told to hide. When the king burns it, he writes the whole thing again from dictation, with more added.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Baruch
- 01
- 02
Jeremiah 36:4-10
He read it in their ears
Jeremiah dictates from a first year to a fourth. Baruch writes it, and on a fast day reads it in the entry of the new gate to all the people, because the prophet is shut up and cannot enter.
- 03
Jeremiah 36:17-19
How did you write all these words
The princes ask whether he wrote them from the prophet’s mouth. He says yes, with ink. They tell him to go and hide, and not to say where.
- 04
Jeremiah 45:1-5
Seek them not
Four verses addressed to him alone. He is told that God is pulling down what he built, and not to seek great things for himself, and that he will keep his life wherever he goes.
Why it matters
The Old Testament almost never shows you how a prophetic book got made, and this is the exception: a man with a pen and an inkhorn, a roll, a fast day, a brazier, and a second roll. Baruch also gets four verses of his own. He says woe is me, the LORD has added grief to my sorrow, and the answer is not comfort but perspective: do not seek great things for yourself, and your life will be given you as a prize in all the places you go.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
