O Jerusalem, look about you toward the east, and behold the joy that comes to you from God.
All Commentaries on Baruch 4:36 Go To Baruch 4
Irenaeus of Lyons
AD 202
Jeremiah the prophet has pointed out that as many believers as God has prepared for this purpose, to multiply those left on earth, should both be under the rule of the saints to minister to his Jerusalem and that his kingdom shall be in it, saying, “Look around Jerusalem towards the east, and behold the joy that comes to you from God. Behold, your children shall come whom you have sent forth; they shall come in a band from the east even to the west by the word of that Holy One, rejoicing in that splendor from your God.” Now all these things being such as they are, they cannot be understood in reference to supercelestial matters, “for God,” it is said, “will show the whole earth that is under heaven your glory.” But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ to its pristine condition, and Jerusalem will be rebuilt after the pattern of Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, “Behold, I have depicted your walls on my hands, and you are always in my sight. John, the Lord’s disciple, says that the new Jerusalem above shall then descend, as a bride adorned for her husband, and that this is the tabernacle of God, in which God will dwell with humanity. Of this Jerusalem the former one is an image—the Jerusalem of the former earth in which the righteous are disciplined beforehand for incorruption and prepared for salvation.
