Jer 36:16-26 | KingComments | STEP | Gemariah has a son, Micaiah, who hears the words of the LORD ( ). It is beautiful to see that line of grandfather (Shaphan), father (Gemariah) and son (Micaiah), all of whom have a connection to the Word of God. Micaiah is moved by what he hears. It causes him to go to the scribe’s chamber where all the officials are sitting ( ). He tells them all that he has heard from the scroll that Baruch read ( ). If we have heard God’s words, and if they have affected and edified us, we will gladly communicate them to others who have not heard them for their edification. Micaiah is a young man, but one who is taken seriously. He must have been known as trustworthy and God-fearing. The officials don’t say they don’t believe him, but take action after his report ( ). They send Jehudi out to get Baruch with his scroll. Why don’t they go to Baruch themselves? Are they ashamed to go into the midst of the people and listen together with them to the words of God? This is also the way Zedekiah later acts when he secretly sends for Jeremiah. Baruch does not hesitate, but comes directly to them with the scroll in his hand. This is brave, because he knows that the scroll does not contain a pleasant message and he knows the unruly nature of the officials. Then they ask him to sit down and read the scroll to them ( ). Baruch does as he is asked, without reproach that they could have come to the gate anyway to hear it there and spare him this double work. He did it fearlessly before the people, he now does it fearlessly before the leaders of the people. We do not hear what impression the reading of the scroll made on the people. We do read what the effect of the Word is on the officials. When they hear all the words, they become afraid ( ). They do know the message of Jeremiah. They will often have shrugged it off, but now the words impress them. They cannot hide their fear, but show it to each other. It is not clear whether it is fear of the LORD or fear of the king. In any case, the words do not bring them to a confession before the LORD, but to a making known of the words to the king. He is to be informed of them. Then they want to know how Baruch wrote down all these words from Jeremiah’s mouth ( ). It seems more like a technical question than the question of a convinced conscience. Baruch’s answer is simple ( ). There is nothing startling about it. The officials acknowledge the danger Jeremiah and Baruch face for their lives when Jehoiakim hears these words. They advise them to hide. God can still use people who have some appreciation for His Word, but do not repent, for His work and the protection of His servants (cf. ). The officials know their king ( ). They fear that his anger will kindle and that both Baruch and Jeremiah will be put to death if he knows where they are. Therefore, they tell Baruch that he and Jeremiah should hide. Just as Ahab diligently sought Elijah during the terrible drought to kill him ( ), so too will Jehoiakim rage against them. The LORD, however, takes care of His servants.

‏ Jeremiah 36:16-26

Reading to the Officials

Gemariah has a son, Micaiah, who hears the words of the LORD (Jer 36:11). It is beautiful to see that line of grandfather (Shaphan), father (Gemariah) and son (Micaiah), all of whom have a connection to the Word of God. Micaiah is moved by what he hears. It causes him to go to the scribe’s chamber where all the officials are sitting (Jer 36:12).

He tells them all that he has heard from the scroll that Baruch read (Jer 36:13). If we have heard God’s words, and if they have affected and edified us, we will gladly communicate them to others who have not heard them for their edification.

Micaiah is a young man, but one who is taken seriously. He must have been known as trustworthy and God-fearing. The officials don’t say they don’t believe him, but take action after his report (Jer 36:14). They send Jehudi out to get Baruch with his scroll. Why don’t they go to Baruch themselves? Are they ashamed to go into the midst of the people and listen together with them to the words of God? This is also the way Zedekiah later acts when he secretly sends for Jeremiah.

Baruch does not hesitate, but comes directly to them with the scroll in his hand. This is brave, because he knows that the scroll does not contain a pleasant message and he knows the unruly nature of the officials. Then they ask him to sit down and read the scroll to them (Jer 36:15). Baruch does as he is asked, without reproach that they could have come to the gate anyway to hear it there and spare him this double work. He did it fearlessly before the people, he now does it fearlessly before the leaders of the people.

We do not hear what impression the reading of the scroll made on the people. We do read what the effect of the Word is on the officials. When they hear all the words, they become afraid (Jer 36:16). They do know the message of Jeremiah. They will often have shrugged it off, but now the words impress them. They cannot hide their fear, but show it to each other. It is not clear whether it is fear of the LORD or fear of the king. In any case, the words do not bring them to a confession before the LORD, but to a making known of the words to the king. He is to be informed of them.

Then they want to know how Baruch wrote down all these words from Jeremiah’s mouth (Jer 36:17). It seems more like a technical question than the question of a convinced conscience. Baruch’s answer is simple (Jer 36:18). There is nothing startling about it. The officials acknowledge the danger Jeremiah and Baruch face for their lives when Jehoiakim hears these words. They advise them to hide. God can still use people who have some appreciation for His Word, but do not repent, for His work and the protection of His servants (cf. Acts 19:31).

The officials know their king (Jer 36:19). They fear that his anger will kindle and that both Baruch and Jeremiah will be put to death if he knows where they are. Therefore, they tell Baruch that he and Jeremiah should hide. Just as Ahab diligently sought Elijah during the terrible drought to kill him (1Kgs 18:10), so too will Jehoiakim rage against them. The LORD, however, takes care of His servants.

Jehoiakim Hears the Scroll and Burns It

What happens next is so shocking and upsetting that Jeremiah describes everything in detail. The officials go to the king (Jer 36:20). They do not take the scroll with them, but put it away in the scribe’s chamber. They apparently know the contents so well that they can make what is written in the scroll known to the king. However, the king wants to see the scroll himself (Jer 36:21). He sends Jehudi out to get the scroll. Jehudi takes it from the scribe Elishama’s chamber. Twice it is said that the scroll is there. When Jehudi is back with the king, he reads from it. The king and all the officials hear the contents again. The officials are confronted with it for the third time.

The king sits in his winter palace (Jer 36:22; Amos 3:15). He sits there doing nothing. Perhaps he is thinking about how he can assure himself of a good life. Then he is confronted with the Word of God, the thoughts of God, thoughts that go against his plans. It is winter time. The ninth month is our month of December. That explains why he is sitting at a fire burning in the brazier before him. Outside it is cold; but also his heart is as cold as ice.

When Jehudi has read a portion of the LORD’s words, the king cuts that portion off and throws it into the fire that was in the brazier (Jer 36:23). He does not have the patience that the officials have to listen to the reading until everything is read. When he has heard the contents of “three or four columns”, he cuts them off the scroll in anger with a scribe’s knife – the knife with which the scribe sharpens his pen – and throws the columns, one by one, into the fire. [Note: In the old days, people did not write on stone tablets or on clay tablets, but on papyrus. A scroll consisted of papyrus sheets glued together and was written on in columns. ]

So it goes on until the entire roll is consumed by the fire and he is sure that there is nothing left of it. This is how thoroughly he proceeds. It is an act of supreme blasphemy and deepest contempt for God’s revelation in His written Word. Jehoiakim is doing the opposite of what God has said in the law, that the king himself should write for himself a copy of the law on a scroll in order to get to know it and rule in accordance with it (Deu 17:18).

In his folly he thinks that by doing so he is nullifying the threats that have been proclaimed against him, as if God cannot execute the verdict because the scroll is gone, in which the verdict was written down. What we think of the Bible and how we treat it has no effect on the Bible itself. What Jehoiakim does happens daily with all truths that do not please a man. Anything that hinders a man in his complacent life is cut out of God’s Word. Portions about the judgment of God are left out.

A lot of preachers preach only pleasant things, nice promises, but refuse to speak about judgment. They speak of God as a God of love Who will not send anyone to hell. But no matter what we delete from the Bible, it does not change God’s Word. Our contempt does not change God’s judgment. Jezebel opposed God’s Word, but her opposition did not change the fact that she became, as God said, food for the dogs (2Kgs 9:10 ; 35-36).

The coming of Christ to judge and establish His kingdom is not believed, but mocked (2Pet 3:3). This also cuts off the rapture of the church, which God’s Word clearly teaches (1Thes 4:15-18). The bodily resurrection is also denied (1Cor 15:12-23), as is the different place that man and woman have in God’s order of creation and also when the church comes together. The same goes for sexuality to be experienced only within marriage between that one man and that one woman, and for reverence for life at the beginning and the end. This is all being cut off.

Man judges everything by his own standards. He does not realize that he is guided by satan in doing so. Everything is thrown into the fire of his own judgment. And what about the commission to preach the gospel to all people? Have we cut that off too? And always pray? Do we do that? That too is a command of the Lord. If we don’t, we’ve cut it off. Do we listen to what the Bible says about our tongue (Jam 3:1-12)? If not, we have cut it off. We all so easily wield the scribe’s knife of our own opinions, sometimes without even realizing it.

The king cuts up God’s Word without batting an eye (Jer 36:24). Even his servants stand by and do not turn pale because of the unprecedented disregard for the LORD’s words shown by the king, the king of God’s people! They do not rend their garments, as Josiah, this Jehoiakim’s own father, does, when the book of the law is read to him (2Kgs 22:11). They do the opposite. What is for Josiah the find of his life is treated with the utmost contempt by Jehoiakim and all his servants.

Even earlier, the officials looked at each other anxiously when they heard the words read out (Jer 36:16). There is no sign that the word of the LORD has worked anything in them. That is the consequence of not separating oneself from evil. Jehoiakim and the officials resemble modern translators and modern theologians who also treat the Word of God without respect and with contempt. We are just as good Christians as we have love for the Bible. In other words, the measure of love for the Bible determines the measure or quality of being a Christian.

A few servants still made a weak protest (Jer 36:25). But people in the wrong position are powerless to act against a prevailing evil. Think of Lot in Sodom. The protest is more of a soothing of one’s own conscience. Those who are truly upset at the dishonor done to God will leave a fellowship that treats God and His Word with such contempt. Respect for God’s Word is demonstrated by obedience to God’s Word. God’s Word calls us to come out of a fellowship that refuses to judge evil, sin. It is either to remove the evil one (1Cor 5:13b), or to leave that fellowship if the evil one is not removed (2Tim 2:19-21).

Jehoiakim commands to seize Baruch and Jeremiah (Jer 36:26). He has destroyed their penmanship, now he wants to kill them as well, so that they can no longer do their work. After destroying the written testimony, the witnesses themselves must then be killed. We also see this attitude with the chief priests regarding the gospel when the church has just come into existence (Acts 4:17). The command of Jehoiakim cannot be carried out because Baruch and Jeremiah are untraceable because the LORD hid them. The officials can advise that they hide (Jer 36:19), but they cannot and dare not provide safety and protection. That is what the LORD does (Psa 31:20).