A NOTE ON THIS RENDERING

THE WITNESS — AND HOW IT WAS SUPPLIED

This is 4 Baruch — the Paraleipomena Jeremiou, “the things omitted from Yirmeyahu” — the last and most overtly Messianic of the three books that bear Baruch's name on this shelf. Its clean public-domain English witnesses proved not to be machine-fetchable in continuous form (the modern translations are under copyright; the public-domain Harris edition of 1889 is a Greek critical text, not an English one). The House was therefore FURNISHED with a complete text of the book, and this volume renders that supplied text into the House vocabulary and voice — exactly as the wanting fifth chapter of 3 Baruch was supplied and set. It is declared here honestly: the English base was provided to the House, not restored by it, and has been rendered to match the other Baruchs.

AVIMELEKH'S SIXTY-SIX YEARS, AND THE FIGS THAT DID NOT WITHER

Before the city falls, Yirmeyahu sends AVIMELEKH the Kushite to the vineyard of Agrippa to gather figs; and there, at noon, he sleeps SIXTY AND SIX YEARS and wakes thinking he has slumbered an hour (chapters 3, 5). He finds the figs still fresh, DRIPPING WITH MILK; and the sign is read plainly — as the figs were preserved uncorrupted through the long sleep, so shall the flesh be preserved and raised. “The AVIR is coming, and shall raise thee up in thy tabernacle … he who preserved the basket of figs, the same shall preserve thee also” (6:7–11). It is the resurrection of the body, told in a basket of figs; the number sixty-six (seventy of the exile, less the four years) is the book's hidden clock, and is left as it stands.

THE EAGLE THAT REVIVED THE DEAD

The letters between Baruch in Yerushalayim and Yirmeyahu in Bavel are borne by an EAGLE that speaks with a human voice (chapters 6–8). To prove the letter true, the eagle lights upon a corpse being carried out to burial, and the dead man LIVES AGAIN — “and this came to pass, that they might believe” (7:17). The people cry, “Is this the Elohim who appeared unto our fathers in the wilderness by Moshe, who hath now appeared also unto us?” The House prints the wonder as it stands, a resurrection-sign set within a resurrection-book.

THE WATER OF THE YARDEN, AND THE GREAT SEAL

The condition of return is a testing at the river: “ye shall prove them by the water of the YARDEN … this is the sign of the great seal” (6:27); those who will not be separated from Bavel are shut out both from Yerushalayim and from Bavel, and become a people apart. The ancient reader heard in “the great seal” the seal of immersion; the House prints the figure as it stands and lets the water of Yarden speak for itself — the same river where the Beloved would later be sealed.

YIRMEYAHU'S THREE-DAY TRANCE, AND THE PROPHECY OF YESHUA HAMASHIACH

The crown of the book is its ninth chapter. Yirmeyahu, at the altar, falls as one dead; for THREE DAYS his body is kept unburied, a voice forbidding it — “bury not him that yet liveth; for his soul is coming into his body again” — and on the third day his soul returns and he lifts his voice (9:7–15). Then he prophesies openly: “Glorify Elohim, and the BEN HAELOHIM who awakeneth us, YESHUA HAMASHIACH, the Light of all the ages … he shall come, and choose for himself TWELVE SH'LICHIM, that they may preach among the nations; he whom I beheld … coming into the world upon HAR HAZEITIM” (9:16–22). The Name is set as the book itself sets it in the tongue — Yeshua the Mashiach — not imported by the House but printed as it stands. This is why the volume is placed as it is: a prophet, raised on the third day, foretelling the Son of Elohim, the Twelve, and the Mount of Olives, generations before the Besorah.

THE STONE THAT TOOK HIS LIKENESS — “THEY WERE STONED”

Because he named the Ben HaElohim, the people take up stones, as they had for Yeshayahu (9:23). Yirmeyahu sets up a STONE that by the command of Elohim takes on his likeness; the crowd stones the stone while he finishes delivering his mysteries to Baruch and Avimelekh; then the stone cries out, “Behold, Yirmeyahu standeth in your midst!” and he is stoned indeed (9:26–30). Here is the tradition behind the roll of faith — “they were stoned, they were sawn asunder” (Ivrim 11:37): the sawing belongs to Yeshayahu, the stoning to Yirmeyahu. It is set as it stands, a martyr's death sealing a Messianic prophecy.

THE VESSELS HIDDEN UNTIL THE BELOVED

As the city falls, Yirmeyahu commits the holy vessels of the service to the earth, which swallows them up, to be guarded “until the coming of the BELOVED” (3:8–12) — the same tradition the House prints in 2 Makabim of the ark and altar hidden by Yirmeyahu in the mountain. The keys of the Heichal he casts toward the sun, to be kept “until the day in which Yahuah shall require them” (4:2). The House prints both as they stand: the vessels wait, sealed in the earth, for the Beloved to whom the whole book is straining.

THE TREE OF LIFE, AND THE WORLD TURNED

At the last Yirmeyahu sees the ETZ HACHAYIM planted in the midst of GAN-EDEN come into the world, making the barren trees fruitful and the boastful to wither (9:18–20); and the great reversal — “that which is scarlet shall become white as wool; the snow shall be made black; the sweet waters shall become salt, and the salt sweet” (9:21) — the signs of the age to come, kin to the wonders of 4 Ezra. It is printed as the vision it is.

A NOTE ON THE STYLE OF THIS VOLUME

As with 2 and 3 Baruch, this volume carries the House vocabulary in the earlier manner — the Hebrew term transliterated, with its English sense in parentheses at first appearance (“Avimelekh (Abimelech),” “the water of the Yarden (Jordan)”) — rather than the green Hebrew-script gloss of the newer volumes. The three Baruchs stand together in one dress, and await together a future normalisation to the script-gloss standard. The AVIR ruling of 2 Baruch is honoured here at 6:7, where “the Mighty One” who raiseth the dead is set as the AVIR.

RULE X.4

The text is rendered as it stands. Its wonders — the sixty-six-year sleep, the figs that do not corrupt, the speaking eagle that raises the dead, the stone that wears a prophet's face — are printed as the book tells them, not softened to the probable. Its overtly Messianic close, transmitted through Christian hands, is set as it stands and not trimmed; the Name Yeshua HaMashiach is printed because the supplied text sets it, and its meaning is weighed in this note, not in the verse. Interpretation belongs here; it is never smuggled into the text.