NOTES for Bar 4:20

What does the prophet mean when he says that he has “taken off the garment of peace”? Judging by the meaning of the corresponding Greek word, he is referring to the clothing he ordinarily wore in days of prosperity. This usage reflects the peculiarities not of Greek but of Hebrew or Aramaic, where the concepts of “peace” and “prosperity” are expressed by the same word. Standing before God is, of course, always an event in a person's life. But there are evidently special occasions when it becomes a matter of life and death. This happens in times of natural disaster or social upheaval. It is not only that, at such times, trust in God is harder to preserve than in days of prosperity. It is also that a person who trusts God normally cannot fail to understand that what is happening is not accidental, that when God permits a catastrophe He does not permit it without reason. An attempt to turn to God in order to change the situation then resembles an attempt to persuade an angry king to revoke a punishment he considers entirely deserved. God, of course, differs from a king in this respect, above all because He Himself does not seek to make anyone's life difficult. In such a case, all punishment comes down essentially to God's non-intervention in the developing situation: people themselves handle punishment quite well—though it is far from always just—displaying an ingenuity that can hardly please their Creator. Yet God plainly has every reason even for such non-intervention if He takes this position. A person who asks Him to intervene thereby assumes responsibility for those on whose behalf he asks. He in effect vouches for those for whom he seeks intercession, promising God on their behalf that they will change, and change so much that He will no longer turn away in anger when He looks at their lives and actions. Such a step requires trust and resolve. And faith in those for whom one asks.

Today's reading is best read from the end. The prophets truly longed to see the Messiah's coming, to see the demons overthrown, to see the coming of the Kingdom and the restoration of Jerusalem. And what did they see around them? Ceaseless wars and devastation, the grief and suffering of God's people, exile and death. They saw the Temple destroyed and, like all the people, were handed over to their enemies. They explained why this had happened, and their voice was not always heard. Yet the most important thing for them was not the sin already committed, not the fact that the people had turned away from God and were suffering for it. For the prophets, the most important thing remained that God wants to be with people, reaches out to them and will surely come, because He is faithful to His promises. And if He promised His Kingdom on earth, then so it will be. What, then, should someone do who has turned away but repented, who weeps because he failed to remain faithful? For such people the prophet Baruch offers a prescription: “As your resolve was to go astray from God, increase it tenfold in order to return and seek Him.”