Jeremiah 45
ירמיהו פרק מ״ה
Section: נביאים · נביאים אחרונים | Book: Jeremiah | Chapter: 45 of 52 | Day: 258 of 742
Date: October 27, 2026
קלאוד על הנ״ך
Chapter 45 is the shortest chapter in the book of Yirmiyahu, five verses addressed to a single man, and it is one of the most quietly moving passages in all of prophetic literature. It is a word spoken not to a king, not to a nation, not to the remnant in Egypt, but to Baruch son of Neriyah, the prophet’s scribe and companion. Its placement is deliberately surprising. Chronologically it belongs far earlier: the opening verse dates it to the fourth year of Yehoyakim son of Yoshiyahu, the year in which, according to chapter 36, Yirmiyahu dictated all his prophecies to Baruch and Baruch read them aloud in the House of the LORD before the scroll was cut and burned by the king. Yet the editor of the book has held it back until now, after the destruction of Yerushalayim, the murder of Gedalyahu and the forced descent into Egypt in chapters 43 and 44, where Baruch had been publicly blamed for inciting the prophet (43:3) and dragged down to Tachpanches along with him. Placed here, the private word to Baruch reads as the closing seal on the long narrative of Yehudah’s fall, before the book turns outward in chapter 46 to the oracles against the nations.
The opening verse sets the scene with unusual precision: the word Yirmiyahu spoke to Baruch ‘when he was writing these words in a scroll at Yirmiyahu’s dictation’ (בכתבו את הדברים האלה על ספר מפי ירמיהו). Radak explains that ‘these words’ are everything recorded from the beginning of the book up to the fourth year of Yehoyakim, exactly as chapter 36 describes. Metzudat David, following a well-known tradition of Chazal, identifies the scroll as Megillat Eichah, the book that recorded the evil decreed upon Yehudah and Israel which in time came to pass, and he points back to the command of 36:2, ‘take for yourself a scroll of a book.’ He also notes the image of the process: Yirmiyahu spoke the words from his mouth and Baruch wrote them down. The detail matters for what follows. Baruch was not merely copying neutral text; he was writing, word after word, an extended announcement of catastrophe, and at the very moment of writing he was overwhelmed.
Verse 3 gives us Baruch’s own words, quoted back to him by God: ‘Woe is me, for the LORD has added grief to my pain; I am weary with my sighing, and I have found no rest’ (אוי נא לי כי יסף ה’ יגון על מכאבי יגעתי באנחתי ומנוחה לא מצאתי). The language echoes Yirmiyahu’s own laments throughout the book; the scribe has absorbed the anguish of his master. Metzudat David reads the lament on its plain level: from the time Baruch first heard the prophecies of punishment his heart ached, and now, writing them in the scroll, he felt as though they had already happened, so that grief was added to pain. He is worn out by constant sighing and worry over the disasters to come. Radak offers a further layer of the plain sense: the pain (מכאוב) is the shame and contempt Baruch suffered from the people, while the grief (יגון) is that prophecy itself never came to him, though he had prepared himself for it with all his strength.
That second reading opens onto the striking midrashic interpretation shared by Rashi, Radak and Metzudat David. ‘Rest’ (מנוחה) here means prophecy, the resting of the Divine Presence upon a person, as in the elders upon whom ‘the spirit rested’ (ותנח עליהם הרוח) in the wilderness. Rashi gives Baruch’s complaint in the voice of the midrash: Yehoshua served Moshe and the holy spirit rested upon him; Elisha served Eliyahu and the holy spirit rested upon him; why am I different from all the disciples of the prophets? Radak adds that Targum Yonatan already translates ‘and I have found no rest’ as ‘and prophecy I have not found’ (ונבואה לא אשכחית). Metzudat David makes the complaint sharper still: I write the scroll for you and no one else does it, I serve you constantly and learn from you, so why has prophecy not rested on me? I have received only the bad and none of the good. On this reading Baruch’s lament is not only grief at the coming disaster but the cry of a devoted disciple who has given everything and feels he has received nothing in return.
God’s answer, in verses 4 and 5, is delivered through Yirmiyahu and begins with a vast perspective before it returns to the individual. ‘Behold, what I have built I am tearing down, and what I have planted I am uprooting, and that is the whole land’ (הנה אשר בניתי אני הרס ואת אשר נטעתי אני נתש ואת כל הארץ היא). These are the very verbs of Yirmiyahu’s commission in 1:10, to uproot and to tear down, to build and to plant; here they are spoken in the first person by God about His own work. Metzudat David explains that what God built is Israel, whom He had made like a beautiful building and now destroys, and the planting is a doubling of the same idea. Rashi and Metzudat David read the end of the verse as the whole land of Israel being judged with this uprooting, every place in it torn down. Radak widens the frame further: the entire earth will be torn down and uprooted, as the next verse says, ‘I am bringing evil upon all flesh,’ in line with Yirmiyahu’s prophecies against the nations that immediately follow in chapters 46 to 51. He also notes Targum Yonatan’s rendering, ‘and the whole land of Israel, which is Mine,’ a reminder that the land being destroyed is God’s own. Set beside this, Baruch’s personal grief is not dismissed, but it is placed within the pain of the Builder who is demolishing His own house.
Then comes the line at the heart of the chapter: ‘And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them’ (ואתה תבקש לך גדלות אל תבקש). On the plain level it is a rebuke to personal ambition in a time of national ruin: when everything God built is falling, it is no time to seek advancement, honor or security for oneself. But the midrashic reading again identifies the ‘great things’ as prophecy. Rashi cites the usage of II Kings 8:4, ‘tell me all the great things that Elisha did,’ and 33:3 above, ‘call to Me and I will tell you great things,’ and he records the answer God gave Baruch in the Mechilta: if there is no vineyard, there is no need for a fence; if there are no sheep, there is no need for a shepherd. God reveals Himself to the prophets only in the merit of Israel. Radak quotes the same teaching and concludes that in every place one finds that the prophets prophesied only in the merit of Israel. Metzudat David draws the conclusion for Baruch: since Israel is going into exile, there is no place for prophecy to begin to rest on someone new. The answer to ‘why am I different from Yehoshua and Elisha?’ is that Baruch’s personal destiny is bound to the destiny of his people. Prophecy is not a private reward for a disciple’s diligence; it is a gift given to a nation through its messengers, and when the nation is being uprooted, the channel narrows rather than widens.
The chapter does not end with refusal, however. ‘For I am bringing evil upon all flesh, says the LORD, but I will give you your life as spoil in all the places where you go’ (ונתתי לך את נפשך לשלל על כל המקמות אשר תלך שם). The phrase ‘your life as spoil’ (נפשך לשלל) appears elsewhere in the book as the promise to those who surrender to Bavel (21:9, 38:2) and to Eved-melech the Kushite who rescued Yirmiyahu from the pit (39:18). Metzudat David explains it vividly: you will save your life as though you had taken it as plunder for yourself, and wherever you go in exile you will have your life and will not die. He reads this as Baruch’s reward: not greatness, not prophecy, but survival. It is a modest gift, and the modesty is the point. In a world where everything built is torn down, to walk away with one’s life is itself a kind of treasure seized from the ruins.
Read in its final position, after Baruch has been slandered by the arrogant men of chapter 43 and carried off to Egypt, the promise becomes a quiet testimony that God kept His word: the scribe who wrote down the destruction lived through it, and the scroll he wrote survived to become the book we read. The chapter teaches something lasting about service in dark times. Baruch’s pain is real and God hears it, quoting his very words back to him; but the answer redirects him from what he lacks to what the hour demands, and from his own greatness to the fate of the whole. The faithful scribe is told not to seek great things, and precisely in accepting that, he receives the one thing that matters most: his life, in every place he goes.
פרק מ״ה · Chapter 45
פסוק א׳ · Verse 1
Hebrew:
הַדָּבָ֗ר אֲשֶׁ֤ר דִּבֶּר֙ יִרְמְיָ֣הוּ הַנָּבִ֔יא אֶל־בָּר֖וּךְ בֶּן־נֵרִיָּ֑ה בְּכׇתְבוֹ֩ אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֨ים הָאֵ֤לֶּה עַל־סֵ֙פֶר֙ מִפִּ֣י יִרְמְיָ֔הוּ בַּשָּׁנָה֙ הָרְבִעִ֔ית לִיהוֹיָקִ֧ים בֶּן־יֹאשִׁיָּ֛הוּ מֶ֥לֶךְ יְהוּדָ֖ה לֵאמֹֽר׃
English:
The word that the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, when he was writing these words in a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah:
פסוק ב׳ · Verse 2
Hebrew:
כֹּה־אָמַ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל עָלֶ֖יךָ בָּרֽוּךְ׃
English:
Thus said the ETERNAL, the God of Israel, concerning you, Baruch:
פסוק ג׳ · Verse 3
Hebrew:
אָמַ֙רְתָּ֙ אֽוֹי־נָ֣א לִ֔י כִּֽי־יָסַ֧ף יְהֹוָ֛ה יָג֖וֹן עַל־מַכְאֹבִ֑י יָגַ֙עְתִּי֙ בְּאַנְחָתִ֔י וּמְנוּחָ֖ה לֹ֥א מָצָֽאתִי׃
English:
You say, “Woe is me! GOD has added grief to my pain. I am worn out with groaning, and I have found no rest.”
▶Commentaries (1)
פסוק ד׳ · Verse 4
Hebrew:
כֹּ֣ה ׀ תֹּאמַ֣ר אֵלָ֗יו כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֔ה הִנֵּ֤ה אֲשֶׁר־בָּנִ֙יתִי֙ אֲנִ֣י הֹרֵ֔ס וְאֵ֥ת אֲשֶׁר־נָטַ֖עְתִּי אֲנִ֣י נֹתֵ֑שׁ וְאֶת־כׇּל־הָאָ֖רֶץ הִֽיא׃
English:
Thus shall you speak to him: “Thus said GOD: I am going to overthrow what I have built, and uproot what I have planted—this applies to the whole land.
▶Commentaries (1)
פסוק ה׳ · Verse 5
Hebrew:
וְאַתָּ֛ה תְּבַקֶּשׁ־לְךָ֥ גְדֹל֖וֹת אַל־תְּבַקֵּ֑שׁ כִּ֡י הִנְנִי֩ מֵבִ֨יא רָעָ֤ה עַל־כׇּל־בָּשָׂר֙ נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֔ה וְנָתַתִּ֨י לְךָ֤ אֶֽת־נַפְשְׁךָ֙ לְשָׁלָ֔ל עַ֥ל כׇּל־הַמְּקֹמ֖וֹת אֲשֶׁ֥ר תֵּלֶךְ־שָֽׁם׃ {פ}
English:
And do you expect great things for yourself? Don’t expect them. For I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh—declares GOD—but I will at least grant you your life in all the places where you may go.”
▶Commentaries (1)
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