2 Baruch

Historical printed page 489

II BARUCH 15. 5—14. 1 thou to them, thou and those like thee who shall have seen this evil: ‘(This is the evil) and retribution which is coming upon you and upon your people in its (destined) time that the nations 6, 7 may be thoroughly smitten. And then they shall be in anguish. And if they say at that time: 8 For how long? Thou wilt say to them: “Ye who have drunk the strained wine, Drink ye also of its dregs, The judgement of the Lofty One Who has no respect of persons.”’ 9 On this account he had aforetime no mercy on His own sons, But afflicted them as His enemies, because they sinned, το Then therefore were they chastened That they might be sanctified. . OXYRHYNCHUS GREEK FRAGMENT. Recto. Recto. « 11 But now, ye peoples and (19-20) 11. (Ye) peoplesand... οπηζ΄ 1 nations, ye are guilty Because ye have always (Ye) have trodden down the ta εθνὴ καί 14 letters trodden down the earth, _ earth καταπα And used the creation And misused thecreated things 20 τήσαντες τὴν (γὴν καὶ Ka- unrighteously. in it. ταχρήσαμενοι 12 For I have always bene- (21-22) 12. For ye were always being τοὺς ἐν αὐτὴ κτισμίασι 12 fited you. benefited UPLELS ‘yap EvEp And ye have always been But ye were always ungrateful. γετουμενοι ae nxa(piore- ungrateful for the bene- ιτε αει ficence. XIV-XIX. The Righteousness of the Righteous has profited neither them nor their City; God's Fudgements are incomprehensible ; the World was made for the Righteous, yet they pass and the World remains (X1V). Answer—-Man knows Goa’s Fudgements and has sinned willingly. This World is a Weariness to the Righteous but the next is theirs(XV), to be won through Character whether a Man’s Time here be long or short (XV\-XVII). Final Weal or Woe— the supreme Question (XVIII-XIX). 4: And I amswered and (23-25) 14. 1. And I answered and και απεκριθην και εἰποὺ)»14 1 said: ‘Lo! Thou hast said: ‘ Behold, thou hast shown wou απεδει shown me the method of me the methods of the times, €as μοι καιρων ταξεις" κίαι the times, and that which and that which shall be. To μελλον 5. thou and those like thee who shall have seen this evil. ‘those like thee’, i.e. > DDT, are the same as ‘tthe many (= D°377 corer for ὉΠ) who are witht thee’ in xxiv. 2. All previous translations have wrongly rendered yoke ke as ‘have seen’, whereas the context requires that it should be rendered ‘ shall have seen’. The time referred to is in the future—the end of the world : the evil referred to is not the destruction of Jerusalem in the past, but the retribution which should befall the Gentiles in the last days. To this time of the end Baruch was to be preserved (xiii. 3) to testify to the Gentiles that full retribution had at last come upon them. those like thee. These are the righteous who shall be surviving in the last days, and who shall join with Baruch in his testimony. 5-7. This (is the evil) and retribution, &c. The text in this verse and the next is defective. First of all I have restored with Ryssel " this is the evil’, which fell out through hmt., and read ‘retribution’ in the singular, as in v. 4. Next the text reads ‘chastened’. But v. 8 shows that the punishment is not corrective, but vindictive. Text = παιδευθῶσιν. which I take to be corrupt, as in 1 Sam. xxvi. 10, for παισθῶσιν = 13. Next, in v. 6, the text reads ‘shall expect’, ‘ shall hope ’= ἐλπίσουσι = yyy, corrupt for om = ‘shall be in anguish’. The same confusion is found in Jer. iv. 19, in the Hebrew MSS. Finally, in v. 7, the text reads ‘when’ where we require ‘for how long’, i.e. ‘NO"7~—not ‘MD alone. 8. Cf. Ps. Ixxv. 7, 8. the Lofty One. Here only in this book (see 4 Ezra iv. 34 ; Isa. lvii. 15). XIV. 1. Baruch has not been shown ‘the method of the times’. Chapter xiii has only told us why the retribution has come on the Gentile cities, and when their punishment will be ἘΠΕ ΠΟ ΕΟΣ Disclosures about the method of the times are promised in xx. 6, and would seem to be given in xxiv. 2-xxv, taken together with xiii, or else in xxvii-xxx. 489