Jeremiah 45 is the shortest chapter in the book, only five verses long, and it is addressed to just one person: Baruch, the scribe who wrote Jeremiah’s words down. It is set back in the year of the first scroll, when Baruch was tired, discouraged and secretly disappointed. God’s message to him is gentle but searching: “Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.” It is placed here, after the fall of Jerusalem and the flight to Egypt, almost like a signature at the end of the story Baruch helped to record.
A study in Jeremiah 45 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 10 min read
A Word For The Man With The Pen
“The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch;”
Jeremiah 45:1, 2
“In the fourth year of Jehoiakim” takes us back to chapter 36, when Baruch first wrote out Jeremiah’s scroll, which we studied in The Scroll The King Burned. He had just spent many days writing down warning after warning of disaster. Then he would have to read them in public, at real risk to his life. It was heavy work.
Baruch was not an ordinary clerk. He was “the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah” (32:12), and his brother Seraiah was a royal official who travelled with King Zedekiah to Babylon (51:59). Baruch came from a family with standing and prospects. He could have had a career at court. Instead, he had tied himself to the most unpopular man in Jerusalem.
And notice: God had a personal word for him. Not for the king, not for the nation, but for the secretary. The person who works quietly in the background, taking notes, carrying messages, doing the unseen work, is not invisible to God.
Woe Is Me Now
“Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the LORD hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.”
Jeremiah 45:3
God quotes Baruch’s own complaint back to him. “Woe is me now!” Baruch felt that God kept piling grief on top of sorrow. He was worn out, groaning, and could not rest. Those words sound a lot like Jeremiah’s own complaints in earlier chapters. Working beside a prophet who carried God’s burden meant sharing the weight of it.
There is comfort in the fact that God heard this. Baruch may have said it under his breath, or only in his heart. God knew it exactly. He does not scold Baruch for being tired. But He does gently show him the real root of his distress.
That Which I Have Built
“Thus shalt thou say unto him, The LORD saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land.”
Jeremiah 45:4
God’s first answer is to put Baruch’s sorrow beside His own. “That which I have built will I break down.” Baruch was grieving over his own lost hopes. God was about to tear down a nation He Himself had built and planted over many centuries. If anyone had reason to grieve, it was God.
It is a quiet reminder that God feels the loss of what sin destroys more than we do. Baruch’s disappointment was real. But it was small beside the heartbreak of the God who had “built” and “planted” Israel and now had to “break down” and “pluck up.”
Seek Them Not
“And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.”
Jeremiah 45:5
Here is the heart of the matter. “Seekest thou great things for thyself?” Part of what was weighing on Baruch was ambition. Perhaps he had hoped for a position of honour, or that the people would repent and the prophet and his scribe would be vindicated and respected. Instead, the whole country was heading for ruin, and his own future with it.
God does not say that ambition for Him is wrong. He says, do not seek great things for thyself, especially not now, when the whole world around you is falling. When a house is burning, it is no time to be planning new furniture.
“We need to beware of self-pity. Never indulge the feeling that you are not esteemed as you should be, that your efforts are not appreciated, that your work is too difficult. Let the memory of what Christ has endured for us silence every murmuring thought. We are treated better than was our Lord. ‘Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.’ Jeremiah 45:5. The Lord has no place in His work for those who have a greater desire to win the crown than to bear the cross.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 476
Jesus turned the world’s idea of greatness upside down: “whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45). John the Baptist said it in four words: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Paul adds: “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3).
The alternative is not to seek nothing at all. Jesus said, “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). The great things worth seeking are God’s things, not ours.
Thy Life For A Prey
Then comes the promise: “thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.” A “prey” was what a soldier carried off from a battle, his share of the plunder. God’s promise to Baruch was that, when everything else was lost, he would come out of the disaster with his life. He would not get the great things he had hoped for. But he would be kept safe “in all places whither thou goest.”
It is the same promise God gave to Ebed-melech (39:18), and the same He offered to everyone who would surrender to Babylon (21:9). And God kept it. Baruch survived the burning of the scroll, the king’s manhunt, the siege, the fall of Jerusalem, the murder at Mizpah, and the forced march to Egypt. His life was spared everywhere he went.
That may not sound like much. Baruch never became a great man at court. But his name is in the Bible, and the words he wrote down at Jeremiah’s mouth have been read by millions of people for twenty-six centuries. He did not seek great things for himself, and God gave him something far greater than he could have imagined: a share in the lasting work of God’s word.
“Not by their wealth, their education, or their position does God estimate men. He estimates them by their purity of motive and their beauty of character. He looks to see how much of His Spirit they possess and how much of His likeness their life reveals. To be great in God’s kingdom is to be as a little child in humility, in simplicity of faith, and in purity of love.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 477
If you are serving God in a quiet, unseen place and feeling that it is all too hard and too small, Jeremiah 45 is for you. God sees you. He knows exactly what you have said in your tiredness. He asks you to let go of the great things you wanted for yourself. And He promises to keep you, wherever you go, for a work that will last longer than any career. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
