NOTES for Bar 5:1

All the prophets of Israel, those of the pre-captivity as those of the after captivity, unanimously testified: the end of the captivity is the time of the expiation of Israel. But and what next? Different people answered to this question differently. All were united in one thing: the return of the Jews on the land of their fathers will become the beginning of a new era in the history of the people of God. However nobody knew exactly how it will be. All were only sure that the Messiah will come very fast: because the same prophets connected His coming with the end of the captivity. Some were ready to see the Messiah in Zerubbabel, who headed the autonomy formed in Judea. Two golden crowns were even made: one for him, the other for the high priest of that time Joshua, who, as was thought, was going to proclaim Zerubbabel the Messiah.

It can seem to us strange, but for the messianic representations of that period such a look was completely organic: because in that period most were convinced that it is not compulsory to be born Messiah, that one can become the Messiah, that the messianic vocation can reveal itself in a common person, quite as revealed itself in him, for example the prophetic vocation. The expected proclamation of Zerubbabel the Messiah did not take place, but the representation of the Messiah as the earthly ruler, although put by God, was widely spread and settled in the consciousness of the believers. There was however also a different view on the messianism and on the messianic Kingdom: as on the Kingdom, expressing with the words of the Savior, "not of this world".

Often in the prophetic visions this Kingdom took the image of Jerusalem, under the appearance among which the ordinary characteristics, very familiar in those days to every earthly city mixed with the completely extraterrestrial characteristics, and Jerusalem was transformed from the earthly city to the celestial city, becoming the symbol of the messianic Kingdom, which comes down from the heaven. Apparently, Baruch also saw the New Jerusalem in particular like that. He understood that the messianic Kingdom is not an ordinary earthly State, but a new world and a new life, a life according to the laws that have nothing common with our world. And it’s near. It remains to wait not much time.