Laments of Baruch for the Destruction of Jerusalem

2 Baruch 10:5–11:7; 35:1–4

Early 2nd Century

Chapter 10

5[ . . . ] I, Baruch, came back and sat in front of the doors of the Temple, and I raised the following lamentation over Zion and said:

6Blessed is he who was not born,
or he who was born and died.
7But we, the living, woe to us,
because we have seen those afflictions of Zion,
and that which has befallen Jerusalem.
8I shall call the Sirens…
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Second Baruch was written sometime in the early second century CE as a response to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. It expresses the despair experienced by those who witnessed that catastrophe but also exhorts those Jews who have been exiled from Jerusalem to trust in God and continue obeying the divine commandments.

The author takes on the persona of the biblical Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, and purports to be responding to the first destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Baruch’s laments echo the language and imagery of the biblical book of Lamentations, whose authorship is traditionally attributed to Jeremiah. The only full extant version is in Syriac.

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