King Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah’s writings
36
📚And it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 📚“Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, to this day. 3 📚It could be that the house of Judah, hearing of all the disaster which I intend to bring on them, will turn, each one of them, from his evil way, so that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin”. 4 📚Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and from the mouth of Jeremiah Baruch 📖 wrote down on a scroll all the words of the LORD which he had spoken to him. 5 📚And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am locked up. I cannot go into the house of the LORD.
36:5 The ungodly will often try to restrict the activities of God’s spokesmen. Jeremiah’s messages spoken in the temple were very unpopular with the priests and prophets there (Jer 20:1-2). They could not endure the truth so they tried to keep it away. Compare Acts 4:1-3, 18; 5:17-18, 27, 28.⚜
6 📚Therefore you go and read the words of the LORD from the scroll which you have written from my mouth, in the hearing of the people in the LORD’s house on a day of fasting. And you shall also read them in the hearing of all Judah who come out of their cities. 7 📚It could be that they will present their supplication before the LORD, and that each one will turn from his evil way; for great is the anger and the fury that the LORD has proclaimed against this people”.
8 📚And Baruch the son of Neriah did everything that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading the words of the LORD in the book, in the LORD’s house.
36:6-8 The word of God which He sends cannot be stopped (Jer 1:12; Isa 55:11). If men try to shut it up one way it will come in another. If one spokesperson is silenced God will choose another. Wicked men would gladly keep the truth shut out of the world altogether, and they will try to bind God’s servants, but God’s word cannot be bound (2 Tim 2:9).⚜
9 📚And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast in the presence of the LORD to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem.
36:9 Verse 6. This was many months after God’s command in v 1. It seems Baruch had to wait this long for a good opportunity. The fast was probably called because of the danger from the Babylonian armies.⚜
10 📚Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the book, in the house of the LORD, in the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entrance of the new gate of the LORD’s house, in the hearing of all the people.
11 📚When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard from the book all the words of the LORD, 12 📚he went down to the king’s house, into the scribe’s chamber, and there sat all the leaders, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah and Elnathan the son of Achbor and Gemariah the son of Shaphan and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the other leaders. 13 📚Then Michaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard as Baruch was reading the book in the hearing of the people. 14 📚Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, “Take in your hand the scroll from which you read in the hearing of the people, and come”. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand, and came to them. 15 And they said to him, “Sit down now and read it in our hearing”. So Baruch read it in their hearing.
16 📚Now it came about, when they heard all these words, they turned to one another in fear, and said to Baruch, “We will surely tell the king of all these words”.
36:16 They were afraid that Jeremiah had spoken the truth of God. All his messages written down together made an impact on at least some of the authorities.⚜
17 📚And they asked Baruch, saying, “Tell us now, how did you write down all these words from his mouth?”
18 📚Then Baruch answered them, “He dictated all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book”.
36:18 Baruch was faithful to put down on paper exactly what Jeremiah dictated. All the writers of the Bible faithfully and carefully put down exactly what God revealed to them and inspired them to write (Jer 30:2; Ex 24:4; 34:27; 2 Sam 23:2; 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21).⚜
19 📚Then the officials said to Baruch, “Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and do not let anyone know where you are”.
36:19 These authorities knew that in those days to speak the truth was to be in danger (compare Jer 26:20-23).⚜
20 📚And they went in to the king in the courtyard; but they stored the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the hearing of the king. 21 📚So the king sent Jehudi to bring the scroll, and he brought it from the room of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king, and in the hearing of all the officials who stood beside the king. 22 📚Now the king was sitting in the winter house, it being the ninth month; and there was a fire burning on the hearth in front of him. 23 📚And it came about when Jehudi had read three or four columns, that he cut it off with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire that was on the hearth, until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire on the hearth. 24 📚Yet they were not afraid, and they did not tear their garments, neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words. 25 📚Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had begged the king not to burn the scroll, but he would not listen to them. 26 📚And the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but the LORD hid them.
36:23-26 There are still those who try to destroy those parts of the Bible they don’t like. Do they vainly imagine that by destroying or denying the words written on paper that they can destroy God’s truth? Those who attack the truth of God’s word will only harm themselves (v 30; Jer 22:18-19).⚜
36:26 See v 19. God did a better job of hiding them than they could have done.⚜
27 📚Then, after the king had burned the scroll and the words from the mouth of Jeremiah which Baruch wrote down, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 28 📚“Take again another scroll, and write on it all the former words, that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned up. 29 📚And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus says the LORD: You have burned that scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written in it saying that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will bring to an end both man and beast here?’ 30 📚Therefore thus says the LORD about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David. And his dead body will be thrown out to the heat of the day and to the frost of the night. 31 📚And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their wickedness, and I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the disaster that I have proclaimed against them, for they did not listen”.
36:27-31 Words of truth written on paper may be cut to pieces and burned in the fire, but the truth itself lives on and will prevail and be fulfilled to the letter (Ps 119:89; Matt 5:18; 24:35; 1 Pet 1:25).⚜
32 📚Then Jeremiah took another scroll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah. He wrote on it, from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and to them were added many similar words.
36:32 God has always looked after His Word. If some men try to destroy it, God will use other men to preserve it.⚜