Baruch

Baruch is a Judahite scribe, son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah, who served as the prophet Jeremiah's secretary and appears throughout the later chapters of the book of Jeremiah. The text says he was of sufficient standing to be entrusted with a legal transaction: Jeremiah 32:12 records that a deed of purchase was handed over to "Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah," in the presence of witnesses in the court of the guard. His name is a Hebrew word meaning "blessed," a common personal name in the period.

His best-known role is as the writer and reader of Jeremiah's scroll. Jeremiah 36:4 states that "Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all Yahweh's words, which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book," and Jeremiah 36:10 that Baruch then read the scroll aloud "in Yahweh's house, in the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate." When the scroll was reported to the princes (Jeremiah 36:12), King Jehoiakim cut it apart with a penknife and burned it in a brazier (Jeremiah 36:23), unmoved and unrepentant (Jeremiah 36:24), despite the intercession of Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah (Jeremiah 36:25). The king then ordered Baruch and Jeremiah arrested, "but Yahweh hid them" (Jeremiah 36:26). Jeremiah 36:32 records the outcome: a second scroll was dictated to Baruch, containing all the words of the burned book, "and many similar words were added to them."

Within the wider narrative of Jeremiah, the text also shows Baruch addressed directly with a personal oracle and taken with Jeremiah to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 45:1–5; 43:6). Historically, clay seal impressions from roughly this period bearing the name of a scribe called Berechiah son of Neriah have been published and are often connected with him, though scholars differ over whether the identification is certain; such a link would fit the portrait of a scribe with official access, but it remains a debated inference rather than a datum the text supplies.

Traditions differ markedly over how far Baruch's role and writings extend. The book of Baruch, a work attributed to him and included in the Septuagint and Vulgate, is received as Scripture in Catholic and Orthodox canons but is not part of the Hebrew Bible or the Protestant canon, where it is treated as an intertestamental writing; most scholars date its composition well after the historical Baruch's lifetime, though confessional assessments of its authority vary accordingly. He is remembered as a saint in several liturgical traditions, while Jewish tradition associates him with the transmission of Jeremiah's words rather than with a book of his own.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.