Baruch
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(blessed) (Jer. 36:10; 32:12; Baruch 1:1) — a prophet, one of the sons of Neriah, of the tribe of Judah, according to Josephus of a distinguished family. He was in close friendship with the prophet Jeremiah, who, during the siege of Jerusalem, attested his friendship for him by redeeming his field in Anathoth, which had belonged to his uncle Hanamel. Baruch, as scribe to the prophet Jeremiah, wrote down from his dictation, while the prophet was in prison, his predictions concerning the invasion of the Babylonians and the captivity of the Jews (36:4, 18), and then, at Jeremiah’s direction, read them to the people in the house of the Lord (vv. 10, 13), and also to the princes (v. 15).
The latter were alarmed by the dread rebukes contained in these prophecies and reported this to the king, who himself listened to the writing and, as it was read, cut off piece by piece with a scribe’s penknife and threw it into the fire, into the brazier (v. 23). Even to this day the Jews commemorate the burning of the sacred scroll with an annual fast. Jeremiah and Baruch, fleeing from the wrath of King Jehoiakim, who had ordered them shut up in prison, hid themselves by God’s command (vv. 19, 26).
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign (36 [as given]), Baruch again wrote down the same prophecy from Jeremiah’s dictation, and, in addition to it, appended a denunciation against Jehoiakim himself (36:32). The Jews, ill-disposed toward Baruch, since he, in their opinion, had induced Jeremiah to hand them over into the hands of the Chaldeans (43:3), cast both him and Jeremiah into prison, in which they remained until the taking of Jerusalem, and when, contrary to Jeremiah’s exhortations, the remnant of the Jews removed to Egypt, both of them were compelled to accompany it (43:6).
Jeremiah died in Egypt. Of Baruch’s return from that country nothing is mentioned, and some, among them Jerome, basing themselves on the testimony of the Jews, assert that Baruch also died in Egypt. The rabbis, however, testify that he died in Babylon, in the twelfth year after the destruction of Jerusalem.