Bible Commentaries

REFLECTIONS.—We read in chap. 36, that Baruch the scribe, who was mentioned to the king as a character of known probity, wrote the substance of Jeremiah’s prophecies against his country, and was deeply sorrowful at its impending doom; but when the princes advised him to hide for fear of the king’s displeasure, he felt weak, and fainted in his sighing. Therefore the Lord comforted him by a special promise, which was realized through a series of calamitous times. His faith though weak was sincere; and he seems the only learned man who stood by the insulted prophet. Now it is a rule in providence, that the prophets’ friends have mostly shared the prophets’ blessings; and likewise that holy men, after showing some act of faith and zeal, have generally received some special token of divine approbation. So Abraham, when he had offered up Isaac his son; so Caleb and Joshua, when they gave a good report of the land; so Phinehas, when he had purged the camp of fornication; and so St. Peter, when he avowed the Saviour to be the Son of God. Here Baruch, acting in the same spirit, obtained promises of like nature.

We should regulate our conduct in conformity to the promises. Baruch, by incurring the king’s displeasure, lost his hopes of preferment, and his prudence sustained a tarnish in the eyes of the world; but God promised him his life for a prey, in all places whither he should sojourn. Then he should review the care of providence with pleasure, while he beheld all his learned colleagues stripped of their preferment, and most of them deprived of life.

We should place a special reliance on the promises in every time of trouble. Baruch’s promises did not merely respect his safety in Jerusalem, but in Egypt, and in all other places of exile. How happy then is the man who by a simple faith lives in a daily reliance upon providence. His life is hid with Christ in God; he glories in tribulation, because it perfects his patience here, and shall augment his happiness for ever.