Baruch 5
A city has spent years in mourning, dressed in grief, head down. Then a voice breaks in and tells her to change clothes. Strip off “the garment of thy mourning,” Jerusalem, and put on “the glory that cometh from God” - a crown, a new name (vv. 1-4). Stand up. Look east, because your children are streaming home (vv. 5-6). And watch what God does to the road: hills cast down, valleys filled, the very forests bending to shade the march (vv. 7-9).3
These are the closing verses of Baruch, a book printed in the 1611 King James Bible between the Testaments, read as Scripture in some Christian traditions and as edifying in others.2 It is set in the long ache of the Babylonian exile, and chapter 5 is its sunrise. Anyone who knows the prophets will hear an old music here, the comfort Isaiah sounded over the same exile. Read it for what it is, a homecoming so vivid you can see the dust rising on the road.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Baruch 5:1-4Put Off Mourning · Put On the Glory of God
1Put off, O Jerusalem, the garment of thy mourning and affliction, and put on the comeliness of the glory that cometh from God for ever. 2Cast about thee a double garment of the righteousness which cometh from God; and set a diadem on thine head of the glory of the Everlasting. 3For God will shew thy brightness unto every country under heaven. 4For thy name shall be called of God for ever, The peace of righteousness, and The glory of God's worship.
The poem opens with a wardrobe, and the choice of clothes is the whole message. Jerusalem has been wearing “the garment of thy mourning and affliction” (v. 1) - the dark, rough dress of grief, the visible sign worn by a city that has buried its dead and watched its children marched away. In the language of the Scriptures, what you put on your body announces the state of your soul: sackcloth for sorrow, ashes for repentance, fine linen for joy. To be told to take off the mourning-garment is not to be told to forget the loss; it is to be told that the season of loss is over, that the grief which had become her daily uniform is no longer the truth about her. The command is gentle but it is a command - put off, put on - as if the change must be chosen, stepped into, worn. Before a single exile has come home, before a stone of the wall is rebuilt, the city is told to dress for the homecoming.2
What she puts on in place of mourning is not a splendour she manufactured. Three times in two verses the source is named: “the glory that cometh from God,” “the righteousness which cometh from God,” the diadem “of the glory of the Everlasting” (vv. 1-2). The new clothing is a gift handed down from above, draped over a city that could never have woven it for herself - and it is lavish. The robe of righteousness is double, a thick and ample covering; the head that hung low in grief is now lifted under a crown. And then the deepest change of all: a new name. The God who renames is the God who remakes, and the name He gives is itself a small poem - “The peace of righteousness, and The glory of God's worship” (v. 4). The city once known for her ruin will be known for the peace that flows from being right with God, and for being the place where God is rightly adored. Her brightness, the poet adds, will be shown “unto every country under heaven” (v. 3): this is not a private comfort whispered in the dark but a glory meant to be seen by the whole world.3
Baruch 5:5-6Look Toward the East · The Children Gathered Home
5Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high, and look about toward the east, and behold thy children gathered from the west unto the east by the word of the Holy One, rejoicing in the remembrance of God. 6For they departed from thee on foot, and were led away of their enemies: but God bringeth them unto thee exalted with glory, as children of the kingdom.
The newly-clothed city is now told to move. The same Jerusalem that sat down in her grief must get up, climb to a vantage point, and lift her eyes toward the sunrise (v. 5) - the posture of one finished waiting in the dark and now watching for the dawn. And what she sees is her children coming home. Verse 6 sets the going-out and the coming-back side by side, and the contrast is the whole point. They departed on foot, trudging, “led away of their enemies” like a chained column of the defeated. But they do not come back the way they left. God brings them “exalted with glory, as children of the kingdom” - not limping refugees but honoured heirs, carried home in dignity. You can feel the poet refusing to let the humiliation stand as the last word. The journey out was shame; the journey back is splendour, and the difference is entirely God's doing.2
There is a deliberate sweep in “from the west unto the east” (v. 5). The exiles had been scattered in every direction, and the poem gathers them from across the whole compass - no straggler too far, no corner of the dispersion overlooked. Jerusalem is told to face east, toward the sunrise, the quarter where light breaks first over a dark land; she watches for her children the way a sleepless household watches for the morning. And they come “rejoicing in the remembrance of God” - not dragged home reluctantly but glad, their joy rooted in the memory of the God who did not forget them in their far countries. This is the answer to exile that runs through the whole book of Baruch: a people who confessed their straying are now a people remembering and remembered, drawn back by the One who keeps His own in mind even when they are out of sight. The mother-city that thought her children lost stands on the height and counts them coming.
Baruch 5:7-9The Road Made Level · God Leading Israel Home
7For God hath appointed that every high hill, and banks of long continuance, should be cast down, and valleys filled up, to make even the ground, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God. 8Moreover even the woods and every sweetsmelling tree shall overshadow Israel by the commandment of God. 9For God shall lead Israel with joy in the light of his glory with the mercy and righteousness that cometh from him.
The poem's final picture is the road itself, and it is a road God reshapes the world to make. The steep ridges and long entrenched embankments that have stood for ages are cast down; the valleys are filled up to make the ground even (v. 7). The obstacles are not bypassed but removed - the broken country between the exiles and home graded flat. And the stated purpose is tender: a safe, level walk, “that Israel may go safely in the glory of God.” Then comes a detail almost startling in its gentleness: “the woods and every sweetsmelling tree shall overshadow Israel” (v. 8). The forests themselves bend to the work, leaning over the marchers to shade them from the sun and perfume their road. The God who flattens mountains for you also thinks of your comfort in the heat of the day. Creation has become a servant pressed into the homecoming. The whole landscape is rearranged “by the commandment of God” for the ease and the joy of the ones coming home.3
The last verse names who is on the road with them, and it changes everything. The exiles are not sent home alone with a map; “God shall lead Israel” (v. 9) - He goes at the head of the column, the way the pillar of cloud and fire once went before the people in the wilderness. And the manner of the leading is piled up in glad words: “with joy in the light of his glory with the mercy and righteousness that cometh from him.” Three things travel with the homecoming. There is joy - this is no grim trek but a procession of gladness. There is the light of his glory - the same God-given splendour that clothed the city in verse 1 now lights the whole road, so that they walk not in the dark of exile but in His brightness. And there is mercy and righteousness - God's tenderness toward a people who had failed Him, joined to His unwavering faithfulness to His own promises, “that cometh from him.” The poem ends exactly where it began: everything that matters - the glory, the righteousness, the mercy, the light - comes from God, poured out on a people who did nothing but rise, look east, and let themselves be led.2
Further study
- The text of Baruch 5 in an English translation with links into the wider Jewish library - useful for tracing the clothing imagery of verses 1-4, the in-gathering of the scattered children in verses 5-6, and the leveling of the road in verses 7-9. (The deep-link to this lesser-printed book may not always resolve; it is included as the standard scholarly reference.)
- Baruch · introduction, dating, and textEarly Jewish WritingsBackground on the book of Baruch as a work of the Second Temple Jewish world - its association with Jeremiah's scribe, its setting in the Babylonian exile, and its movement from confession to comfort - with notes that help place the closing restoration poem of chapter 5 in the larger book.
- A survey of the Book of Baruch - its contents, structure, date, and its standing across Christian traditions (printed in the King James Apocrypha, received as Scripture in some, read as edifying in others) - useful for understanding how chapter 5's poem of return crowns a book of exile and repentance.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Put Off Mourning · Put On the Glory of God
- Isaiah 61:10he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.The exchange of verses 1-2 - mourning laid down, a God-given robe of righteousness put on.
- Isaiah 52:1-2Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem... shake thyself from the dust.The same command to a mourning city - rise, change your clothes, the season of grief is over.
- Galatians 3:27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.The clothing-image of verse 1 carried forward - the old garment off, Christ Himself put on.
- Revelation 19:8to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen... for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.The “righteousness which cometh from God” (v. 2) as a garment granted to the redeemed.
- Colossians 3:9-10ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man.The “put off… put on” gesture of verse 1 carried into the language of new life.
- Luke 15:22Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand.A returning child clothed by the father - splendour given, not earned, the moment he comes home.
- Revelation 7:14they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.The God-given brightness of verses 1-2 - the redeemed clothed in white they did not bleach themselves.
Look Toward the East · The Children Gathered Home
- Isaiah 49:18Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee.The command of verse 5 - the mourning city told to look up and watch her children come.
- Isaiah 43:5-6I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west... Bring my sons from far.The in-gathering “from the west unto the east” (v. 5) - God collecting His scattered from every quarter.
- Matthew 8:11many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.The gathering of verse 5 widened - the in-gathering of God's own from every direction.
- John 10:16other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring... one fold, and one shepherd.The children brought home (v. 6) - the Shepherd who gathers His own and leads them in.
- John 11:52that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.The in-gathering “from the west unto the east” (v. 5) - the scattered drawn back into one.
The Road Made Level · God Leading Israel Home
- Isaiah 40:3-5every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low... and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed.The leveled road of verse 7 - mountains down, valleys up, a way prepared and the glory shown.
- Luke 3:4-6Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low... and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.The same image (v. 7) sounded at the coming of Christ - the way of the Lord prepared.
- Isaiah 35:8-10an highway shall be there... the ransomed of the LORD shall return... with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.The safe road and the joyful homecoming of verses 7-9 - a highway for the redeemed to walk home on.
- Psalm 84:5-7Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee... they go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.God leading His people home (v. 9) - a homeward road walked in His strength toward His presence.
- Revelation 21:4God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.The end of the mourning that opened the poem (v. 1) - grief itself finally undone by God.