Baruch went to the holy place — the place where the Temple once stood — and sat down on the ruins. The ground where the high priest had once offered sacrifices and placed fragrant incense was now dust and rubble. He wept. He wished his eyes were springs and his eyelids fountains of tears, because no amount of weeping felt adequate for what Zion had become.
<i>"Our glorying has been made into dust, and the desire of our soul into sand."</i>
Exhausted by grief, he fell asleep among the ruins. And in his sleep, he saw one of the most extraordinary visions in all of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
A vast forest stretched across a plain, surrounded by lofty, rugged mountains. The forest was enormous — it covered everything. Then, from the opposite direction, a single vine appeared. Beneath it flowed a fountain, peaceful at first, then rising into great waves that crashed against the forest. The waves tore out the trees by their roots. They toppled the mountains. They leveled everything in their path until the once-mighty forest was reduced to nothing.
Nothing except one cedar. One massive cedar, still standing.
The vine approached the last cedar. And then — impossibly — the vine opened its mouth and spoke.
"Are you not that cedar which was left of the forest of wickedness? By whose means wickedness persisted all those years, and goodness never? You kept conquering what was not yours. You never showed compassion to what was. You extended your power over those far from you and held fast those who drew near in the toils of your wickedness. You lifted yourself up as one that could not be rooted out."
Then the verdict: <i>"But now your time has sped and your hour has come. Depart, O cedar, after the forest that departed before you. Become dust with it. Let your ashes mingle together. Recline in anguish and rest in torment until your last time comes — and then you will be tormented still more."</i>
Baruch watched the cedar burn. And as it burned, the vine grew — spreading across the entire plain, which filled with unfading flowers. He awoke.
He prayed for understanding, and God gave it. The forest represented a succession of world empires. The first kingdom that destroyed Zion would itself be destroyed and subjected to the next. That kingdom too would fall. A third would rise and be destroyed. Then a fourth — more harsh and evil than all the others combined — would rule for ages, exalt itself beyond the cedars of Lebanon, hide the truth, and draw the wicked to it like beasts creeping into a dark forest.
But when the time of that fourth empire's destruction arrived, the principate of God's Messiah would be revealed — the fountain and the vine. The Messiah would uproot the empire's multitudes. The last leader of that age would be captured alive, bound in chains, and dragged to Mount Zion. There the Messiah would convict him of every impiety, laying out before him every evil deed his armies had committed.
Then the Messiah would put him to death.
And the Messiah's kingdom would stand forever — until the world of corruption reached its end and the promised times were fulfilled. The forest would be ash. The vine would bloom eternally. And the plain that once lay in darkness would be filled with flowers that never fade.