3. Woe is me now! With Jeremiah in prison, and the king and his counselors giving no heed to the prophet’s messages, Baruch became despondent. His ambition to hold a position of importance in a revived Jewish state ( 5) seemed dashed in view of the apparent failure of Jeremiah’s endeavors. The prophet could enter into a sympathetic understanding of his secretary’s feelings and so help him, for he, too, had experienced bitter disappointments ( 15:10-21; 20:7-18). Baruch, like all men, needed to learn to expect the bitter along with the sweet, failure as well as prosperity (see Job 2:10).
