2 Baruch

Historical printed page 502

Il BARUCH 42. 4--44. 2 4 near and those who have withdrawn this is the word. As for those who were before subject, and afterwards withdrew and mingled themselves with the seed of mingled peoples, the time of these was 5 the former, and was accounted as something exalted. And as for those who before knew not but afterwards knew life, and mingled (only) with the seed of the people which had separated itself, the 6 time of these (is) the latter, and is accounted as something exalted. And time shall succeed to time and season to season, and one shall receive from another, and then with a view to the consummation shall everything be compared according to the measure of the times and the hours of the seasons. 7, 8 For corruption shall take those that belong to it, and life those that belong to it. And the dust shall be called, and there shall be said to it : “Give back that which is not thine, and raise up all that thou hast kept until its time”. XLIIL. Baruch told of his Death and bidden to give his last Commands to the People. 43:1 ‘But, do thou, Baruch, direct thy heart to that which has been said to thee, And understand those things which have been shown to thee ; For there are many eternal consolations for thee. For thou shalt depart from this place, And thou shalt pass from the regions which are now seen by thee, And thou shalt forget whatever is corruptible, And shalt not again recall those things which happen among mortals. 3 Go therefore and command thy people, and come to this place, and afterwards fast seven days, and then I will come to thee and speak with thee.’ tN XLIV. 1-8, XLV-XLVI. Baruch tells the Elders of his impending Death, but encourages them to expect the Consolation of Zion. 44, And I, Baruch, went from thence, and came to my people, and I called my first-born son and [the Gedaliahs] my friends, and seven of the elders of the people, and I said unto them: ‘Behold, I go unto my fathers According to the way of all the earth. 4. The apostates have only this world. mingled peoples. Jer. xxv. 20, 24. ᾿ 5. of the people. The Syriac reads ‘ peoples’, which does not suit Israel, though it does suit the proselytes. separated itself, i.e. the legalistic Israel by the ‘ fence’ of the law (cf. xlviii. 23). The ‘ separatists’ are the Pharisees. the latter. So Kabisch emends. The text reads‘ the former’. Thus the proselytes inherit the world to come. 6. Cf. 4 Ezra iv. 37. 8. Give back, ἄς. Cf. 1.2. The earth gives back the body ; Sheol the soul, in virtue of its relation to which the body is conceived as persisting, and even sensitive. Job xiv. 22. XLIII-XLVI. These chapters belong to b', with the exception of xliv. 8-15. They do not belong to B?, for in xliii. 2, xliv. 2, Ixxviii. 5, Ixxxiv. 1, Baruch is to de an ordinary death and forget all the concerns of mortals, whereas in B* he is to be preserved till the last day to testify against the Gentile oppressors of Israel, xiii. 3, xxv. I, xlviii. 30. Again the people are assured of good tidings in store for them xlvi. 6, as in lxxvii. 12, and bidden to look for the restoration of Zion (Ixxxi. 1, 4 taken with i. 4, vi. 9), whereas in B® there is no consolation of any kind for them in this world. XLIV. 8-15 belongs to Β΄; for the present world is hopeless—defiled with evil xliv. 9, and with its corruption about to pass away xliv. 8 ; it is, moreover, to be given over to. oblivion xliv. g—a statement in flat contradiction with iv. 1. Accordingly all hope is to be directed to the world to come xliv, 15, the promised inheritance xliv. 13, the world of incorruption xliv. 12. Zhe original position of xliv. 8-15 was after xxxil. 6. These verses presuppose xlviii-lii, just as xxxi-xxxv presuppose them ; see note on xxxi-xxxv. XLIII. 1. Refers probably to some lost passage of B}. 2. thou shalt depart. The word and the context indicate ordinary death here. Cf. xliv. 2. whatever is corruptible. Cf. xxi. 19, note. F 3. command thy people, i. c. impart to them the disclosures just made to Baruch. As Baruch has just been told of his coming death, the word ‘ command’ (ΠῚ) is here used in the technical Hebrew sense of giving one’s last command, this place. This conflicts with xlvii. 1—to Hebron. XLIV. 1. son. Elsewhere only in xlvi. 1. ᾿ ; : _ [the Gedaliahs]. Possibly this phrase belongs to the text, but has originated in a corrupt transliteration of ὉΠ ‘the great men’. seven of the elders. Seven only, as the city is now destroyed. In v. 5, before its fall, he summons them all. 2. Contrast xiii. 3 (see note). 502 hs