Baruch 6
Baruch 6 is a practical warning for the exiles about to enter Babylon. They will be surrounded by a magnificent religious machine. The temples are grand. The priests are confident. The people are devoted. It would be easy to ask: if the God of Israel could not protect us from Babylon, perhaps these Babylonian gods are stronger?
What Jeremiah sends is a letter that cuts through the glitter and shows the emptiness. The idols are wood and metal. They do not move unless moved. They do not speak unless words are put in their mouths. They do not see, hear, smell, or taste anything. This is the exiles' anchor: reason itself exposes the absurdity of idolatry. The true God, by contrast, is alive, present, and worthy of trust even in captivity.
The letter is a masterpiece of satire and logic - but it is also a love letter from Jeremiah to his people. He is not abandoning them to Babylon. He is sending them truth to stand on.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Baruch 6:1-7A Letter to the Captives
1A copy of an epistle, which Jeremiah sent unto them which were to be led captives into Babylon by the king of the Babylonians; to certify them as the Lord had commanded him.
Jeremiah writes from Jerusalem to the exiles in Babylon. He cannot be with them physically - but he can send his words. The exiles will face pressure, seduction, and doubt. They will see idolatry all around them and wonder if their God has abandoned them. Jeremiah's letter is a rope thrown across the waters of exile. Hold to it. 1
3Because of the sins which ye have committed before the Lord, ye shall be led away captives into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar the king of the Babylonians.
Jeremiah names the hard truth: you are in exile because of sin. This is not random cruelty. This is covenant justice. But notice - the letter does not end there. If God judges, God also speaks. If God sends into exile, God also sends a messenger. The exiles are not abandoned; they are addressed.
4So when ye be come into Babylon, ye shall remain there many years, and for a long season, even seven generations: after that I will bring you away peaceably from thence.
Seven generations. That is nearly two hundred years. Some of you will not live to see the return. Your children and grandchildren will die in exile. This is the weight of the exile. But Jeremiah does not say "you will be forgotten." He says God will bring them away. Exile is real. Restoration is certain. Hope is not false - it is long.
Baruch 6:8-23Idols Cannot See, Speak, or Smell
8For their gods are silver, and gold, and stone, and timber: such as men have made, graven and molten: they cannot speak, neither can they hear, neither can they see, nor have they understanding.
Jeremiah opens his catalogue of idol-absurdities with a simple fact. These gods are fashioned. They are carved or cast. Every one of them bears the fingerprints of a human craftsman. If a god can be made by human hands, it is not divine. It is human work.
9They cannot do evil, neither can they do good. They see not what is coming; they cannot save themselves from rust, neither from the worms that eat them up. And they shall be ashamed of their works.
The refrain begins: the idol cannot help or harm. It cannot foresee or prevent its own decay. Metal oxidizes. Wood rots. Worms eat the flesh and gold alike. The god cannot even save itself. How can it save its worshippers?
12They light candles before them, and set lamps upon them, which yet they cannot see. They are as the beams of the house; and their hearts are eaten out. The worms do creep up from the ground, and eat them and their raiment, and they feel it not.
One of the most poignant details: the Babylonians light candles before the idols. They kindle lamps. The temple is ablaze with light. But the idol does not see the light. It does not feel the warmth. The worshippers burn offerings in front of a god that cannot see them burning. The whole spectacle of worship is a performance for an empty audience.
19Therefore fear them not: for they cannot defend you from evil, neither can they do you good.
The refrain crystallizes: therefore fear them not. Fear is the lever by which idolatry works. The Babylonians fearfully serve their gods, hoping for protection. But an object that cannot see you, hear you, or move itself has no power to protect. Fear of idols is fear of shadows.
Baruch 6:24-36Idols Cannot Save Themselves from Ruin
24Seeing then that they are not gods, fear them not: for there is no power in them to do evil, neither to do any good. For I know that they are vanity and falsehood.
Vanity and falsehood - these are the only things an idol can deliver. An idol offers the illusion of power while remaining powerless. It is vanity dressed in gold. It is falsehood made into stone. To worship it is to embrace nothing while calling it everything.
27Their gods of gold and silver, and stone, and timber, are no better than the stones hewed out of the mountain: and they shall burn at last in the fire.
The idol is no better than the raw stone from which it was carved. Gold can be melted. Silver can oxidize. Wood can burn. What is made can be unmade. An eternity constructed from materials that do not endure is an eternity built on sand.
28And that which is spoken concerning them is false: for both the priests do commit fraud, and the women do gird themselves with cords.
Even the priests know. They are committing fraud - engaging in practices they know are empty. They are not true believers; they are con artists. And the women who gird themselves with cords are those who wait upon the idols, hoping for fertility or healing. They wait on the deaf and the dead.
33The priests sit in their temples, having their clothes rent, and their heads and beards shaven, and their heads uncovered.
The priests perform a ritual - torn clothes, shaved heads - to demonstrate their piety. But their piety is theater. They are not transformed by their god; they are merely deranged by service to what does not exist. Their ritual bears no fruit.
Baruch 6:37-44As Useless as Scarecrows
37Wherefore they are not gods: therefore fear them not. For as a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers keepeth nothing: so are their gods of wood, and laid over with silver and gold.
One of Scripture's most vivid metaphors. Picture it: a scarecrow in a cucumber garden. It is fashioned with care. It is dressed. It stands. Yet it keeps nothing. The birds ignore it. The garden is raided. The scarecrow is present but powerless. So too with idols. They are clothed in silver and gold, yet they keep nothing.
41Thus are they no better than a lie: and it shall be said in the land that they are gods; although they are not gods.
The idol is not merely impotent - it is a lie. It claims to be divine while being only material. It claims to hear while being deaf. To worship it is to embrace a falsehood and call it truth. This is the essence of idolatry: not ignorance, but willful deception.
Baruch 6:45-58Powerless to the Dead, Helpless to the Living
45It shall be known therefore unto all nations and kings that these are no gods, but the works of men's hands, and that there is no work of God in them.
Jeremiah prophesies a reversal. What Babylon believes in secret - what seems to work in the darkness of the temple - will eventually be exposed to all. The emptiness will be revealed. What seemed powerful will be seen as mere human handiwork.
48How then can one perceive and suppose that they are gods? For neither to the Egyptians nor to the Indians will the gods do any good.
The logic extends outward. If the Babylonian gods cannot help the Egyptians or the Indians - peoples they do not even claim to govern - what are they to anyone? An idol is a local fiction with no reach, no authority, no power. Its domain is only the imagination of those who serve it.
52Moreover the priests take from their gods gold and silver, and give it unto harlots, and out of it also they buy garments for their wives and children.
Another detail of satire: the priests steal from the god and spend it on themselves. The idol is not even a good investment for those who serve it. The temple is just another enterprise for human profit. The god does not complain - because the god does not know.
56These gods of silver, and gold, and stone, being fashioned by the hands of artificers, cannot make whole any disease, nor give relief to one that is sick.
A practical question: does the idol heal? No. Can it cure a disease? No. Can it ease pain? No. If a god cannot do the basic work of a god - to help, to heal, to ease suffering - what good is it? The greatest revelation of an idol's impotence is sickness without remedy.
60Neither can they give riches or money: though a man make a vow unto them, and keep it not, they are not able to require it.
The idol cannot even hold its worshippers accountable. A person vows to give money to the god and breaks the vow. The god cannot demand fulfillment. The god is powerless to enforce its own worship.
Baruch 6:59-72Better Is the Just Man
66How can a man then say that they are gods? for they can neither set up a king over a land, nor give rain unto men.
The two great powers: rain and rule. Can the idol make rain fall on the crops? Can it appoint a king? These are the basics of divine power. If an idol cannot do them, it is not a god. No rain, no king, no power. The test is simple. The idol fails.
69These things are the inventions of men, and the work of the craftsmen: and none that worship them are not ashamed to worship them.
Jeremiah names them: inventions. Human work. Not ancient secrets, not divine revelations - just objects made by toolmakers. The exiles are invited to wake up and see what they are being asked to worship: human inventions dressed in gold.
72But blessed are the just, and their righteous deeds are not forgotten: for their righteousness is before the Lord, and their just deeds shall not be blotted out.
The pivot. Instead of the empty god, look to the just person. Instead of serving idols, be righteous. This is not a new god; it is a new standard. Righteousness is eternal. Justice is remembered by the Lord. A just life is a foundation that does not erode. An idol cannot see you. But the Lord sees you. The just person is blessed.
Baruch 6:73-ENDTherefore Fear Them Not
73Wherefore be not afraid of them: for they can do no hurt, neither is there any profit in them.
The final word is a command and a release. Fear them not. This is addressed to exiles who will hear the voice of Babylon all around them - priests chanting, incense burning, the confidence of a civilization built on idols. In that cacophony, Jeremiah's letter says: fear them not. They cannot hurt you. There is no profit in them. Turn your heart elsewhere.
Further study
- Canonical polemic against idolatry; Baruch 6 (Letter of Jeremiah) parallels.