Skip to Content
intertextual.bible
Go to Related Reading
About this book

Psalms of Solomon

About this book
Which Came First, Psalm of Solomon 11 or Baruch 5? Debated

The Return of Jerusalem’s Scattered Children

Psalm 11

1 Blow the trumpet in Zion to summon (the) saints. Let Jerusalem hear the voice of the one who brings good news; For God has had pity on Israel by attending to them.⁠ 2 Stand on the height, Jerusalem, and look at your children, From the East and the West, gathered together by the Lord;⁠ 3 From the North they come in the gladness of their God, From the faraway islands God has gathered them. 4 He has lowered high mountains into a plain for them; The hills fled at their entrance. 5 The woods gave them shelter as they passed by; God caused every sweet-smelling tree to grow for them, 6 so that Israel might pass by when their God visits them in glory. 7 Put on, Jerusalem, your glorious clothing; Prepare your holy robe; For God has promised good things for Israel, forever and ever.⁠ 8 Let the Lord do what He has spoken concerning Israel and Jerusalem; Let the Lord raise up Israel by His glorious name. 9 The mercy of the Lord be upon Israel forever and ever.

Texts in conversation

Compare Baruch 5:5 and Psalms of Solomon 11:2

Deuterocanon · Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry

Share:

Summary

In Baruch, Jerusalem is comforted with a call to stand on a height and watch God gather her children from east and west. Psalms of Solomon 11 echoes a similar tradition, where Jerusalem is also told to stand on a height and see her children return.

Passages

Baruch 5:5

Deuterocanon
5 Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand upon the height. Look around you toward the east and see your children gathered from the going down of the sun to its rising at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. 6 For they went from you on foot, being led away by their enemies, but God brings them in to you carried on high with glory, on a royal throne. 7 For God has appointed that every high mountain and the everlasting hills should be made low, and the valleys filled up to make the ground level, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God. 8 Moreover the woods and every sweet smelling tree have shaded Israel by the commandment of God. 9 For God will lead Israel with joy in the light of his glory with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
200–50 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Baruch

Psalms of Solomon 11:2

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
2 Stand on the height, Jerusalem, and look at your children, From the East and the West, gathered together by the Lord; 3 From the North they come in the gladness of their God, From the faraway islands God has gathered them. 4 He has lowered high mountains into a plain for them; The hills fled at their entrance. 5 The woods gave them shelter as they passed by; God caused every sweet-smelling tree to grow for them, 6 so that Israel might pass by when their God visits them in glory.
65–30 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Psalms of Solomon

References

“... Although parallels between the Psalms of Solomon have been drawn in various directions, the only sure dependence between them and another apocryphal writing is between Psalms of Solomon 11:2-5 and 1 Baruch 5:5-8. Some scholars extend this alignment to include a larger section (1Bar 4:36-5:9 with PssSol 11) or find other parallels (1Bar 4:26 and PssSol 8:17; 1Bar 4:20 and PssSol 2:21-23) or even expand the parallels to include all of 1 Baruch. [...] A few have detected a dependence of Psalms of Solomon upon 1 Baruch, usually from the observation that the Baruch parallels fit their context and that the themes described are those appropriate to the Babylonian exile. However, most scholars insist that 1 Baruch is dependent upon the Psalms of Solomon because stanza seven of Baruch's "Poem of Consolation and Hope" (1Bar 5:5-9) is longer, disjunctive, and somewhat diffused, while the psalm is a tightly arranged and wholly consistent composition. It seems clear that the Psalms of Solomon are not dependent upon 1 Baruch. It is not impossible, however, that they both are quoting some lost liturgical poem. But without the recovery of this hypothetical source, we may for the present assume that 1 Baruch is dependent upon the Psalms of Solomon. ...”
R. B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 2: Expansions of the “Old Testament” and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 647–648.
“... The almost unanimous conviction of scholars is that the original language of the Psalms of Solomon was Hebrew. Yet, the verbatim parallels between Baruch and the Psalms of Solomon are in Greek. This means that one can assume the possible interchange between the two authors when both texts existed in their actual, Greek form. As Baruch clearly does not depend on the Psalms of Solomon, just two solutions remain: either Psalms of Solomon 11 depends on Baruch, or both on a common source. Although there are differences between the two versions, the close verbal similarities [...] rule out the possibility that two completely independent authors would produce such consonant texts. ...”
Géza G. Xeravits, Take Courage, O Jerusalem: Studies in the Psalms of Baruch 4–5 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 122–123.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Your feedback

Baruch 5:5 and Psalms of Solomon 11:2

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library