Jeremiah 45 KJV
A Message to Baruch
Jeremiah Chapter 45: A Message to Baruch
This chapter is set in 605 BC during the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the precise moment Baruch first inscribed Jeremiah's scroll that the king would later burn, positioning Baruch as the human agent preserving the prophetic word through political upheaval.
1he word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying,
2 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch:
3 Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the LORD hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.
4 Thus shalt thou say unto him, The LORD saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land.
5 And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
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Did You Know?
This chapter is set in 605 BC during the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the precise moment Baruch first inscribed Jeremiah's scroll that the king would later burn, positioning Baruch as the human agent preserving the prophetic word through political upheaval.
Baruch's complaint about added grief and lost rest deliberately echoes Jeremiah's own laments in chapters 15 and 20, revealing that the scribe internalized the same prophetic anguish rather than serving as a detached recorder.
The assurance that Baruch's life would be given 'for a prey' uses identical phrasing to the promise made to Ebed-melech in chapter 39, establishing a recurring motif of divine protection extended to individuals who aid Jeremiah amid national judgment.
Baruch is warned against seeking 'great things,' an admonition that likely addresses his possible aristocratic lineage as son of Neriah and brother to Seraiah, the royal quartermaster mentioned in 51:59, hinting at suppressed ambitions for status or influence.
Placed immediately before the oracles against foreign nations, the chapter functions as a personal counterpoint to cosmic-scale judgment, underscoring that God's care extends to the survival of one faithful servant even while empires fall.