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.
People in this chapter
Baruch 6:1-7A Letter to the Captives
1For the sins that you have committed before God, you shall be carried away captives into Babylon by Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon.
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.
3But now, you shall see in Babylon gods of gold, and of silver, and of stone, and of wood borne upon shoulders, causing fear to the Gentiles.
Jeremiah names the hard truth: you are in exile because of sin. 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.
4Beware therefore that you imitate not the doings of others, and be afraid, and the fear of them should seize upon you.
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
8And as if it were for a maiden that loveth to go gay: so do they take gold and make them up.
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. A god that can be made by human hands is merely human work.
9Their gods have golden crowns upon their heads: whereof the priests secretly convey away from them gold, and silver, and bestow it on themselves.
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?
12But when they have covered them with a purple garment, they wipe their face because of the dust of the house, which is very much among them.
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.
19And they say that the creeping things which are of the earth, gnaw their hearts, while they eat them and their garments, and they feel it not.
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
24Men buy them at a high price, whereas there is no breath in them.
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.
27The things that are sacrificed to them, their priests sell and abuse: in like manner also their wives take part of them, but give nothing of it either to the sick, or to the poor.
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.
28The childbearing and menstruous women touch their sacrifices: knowing, therefore, by these things that they are not gods, fear them not.
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.
33And whether it be evil that one doth unto them, or good, they are not able to recompense it: neither can they set up a king, nor put him down:
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.
41As though they could be sensible that have no motion themselves: and they, when they shall perceive this, will leave them: for their gods themselves have no sense.
The idol 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: willful deception.
Baruch 6:45-58Powerless to the Dead, Helpless to the Living
45And they are made by workmen, and by goldsmiths. They shall be nothing else but what the priests will have them to be.
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.
48For when war cometh upon them , or evils: the priests consult with themselves, where they may hide themselves with them.
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.
52They cannot set up a king over the land, nor give rain to men.
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.
56Neither are these gods of wood, and of stone, and laid over with gold, and with silver, able to deliver themselves from thieves or robbers: they that are stronger than them,
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.
60In like manner the lightning, when it breaketh forth, is easy to be seen: and after the same manner the wind bloweth in every country.
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
66Neither do they shew signs in the heaven to the nations, nor shine as the sun, nor give light as the moon.
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.
69For as a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers keepeth nothing, so are their gods of wood, and of silver, and laid over with gold.
Jeremiah names them: inventions. Human work. Objects made by toolmakers, dressed in gold. The exiles are invited to wake up and see what they are being asked to worship.
72Better, therefore, is the just man that hath no idols: for he shall be far from reproach.
The pivot. Look to the just person. Be righteous. 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.