Baruch 3:9-19: a reflection

9Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life! Give ear to understand wisdom! 10How is it, O Israel, that you are in your enemies’ land, that you have become old in a strange country, that you are defiled with the dead, 11that you are counted with those who are in Hades? 12You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. 13If you had walked in the way of God, you would have dwelled in peace forever. 14Learn where there is wisdom, where there is strength, and where there is understanding, that you may also know where there is length of days and life, where there is the light of the eyes and peace. 15Who has found out her place? Who has come into her treasuries? 16Where are the princes of the heathen, and those who ruled the beasts that are on the earth, 17those who had their pastime with the fowls of the air, and those who hoarded up silver and gold, in which people trust, and of their getting there is no end? 18For those who diligently sought silver, and were so anxious, and whose works are past finding out, 19they have vanished and gone down to Hades, and others have come up in their place.

Baruch calls to a people in exile, and diagnoses the root of their trouble in one piercing line: You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. Their distress, their exile, their sense of growing old in a strange land, traces back to this: they abandoned God, the source of true wisdom and life, for lesser things. Had you walked in the way of God, Baruch says, you would have dwelt in peace forever. And he points to the princes and the wealthy of old, who trusted in silver and gold and their own greatness, and asks: where are they now? Vanished, gone.

Notice the double truth. First, the root of the people's ruin was forsaking the fountain of wisdom, turning from God, the true source of life and peace, to trust in other things. And second, the things they turned to, wealth, standing, the hoarding of silver and gold, did not last; those who trusted in them have vanished and gone down to the grave, and others have taken their place. The fountain was abandoned for cisterns that could not hold, and the cisterns proved empty.

That is a searching word for us. Our own troubles often trace, at root, to a version of the same thing: turning from God, the fountain of true wisdom and life, to lesser sources we hope will satisfy, wealth, achievement, security, control. And those sources, Baruch reminds us, do not last; those who trust in them pass away, and their riches with them. Do not forsake the fountain of wisdom for cisterns that cannot hold. Return to God, the source of life and peace, and drink from the fountain that does not fail.

Lord, Baruch named the root of his people's ruin: they had forsaken the fountain of wisdom, turning from you to lesser things that could not last. Show me where I have done the same, turning from you, the source of true wisdom, life, and peace, to trust in wealth, achievement, or control. Those sources pass away; you do not. Draw me back to you, the fountain that does not fail, and help me drink deeply from you rather than from cisterns that cannot hold.