Jeremiah 36

36:1-32 This description of Jehoiakim’s cynical response to God’s attempt to call him to repentance and covenant obedience (36:3, 7) graphically underscores the hopelessness of the situation. • Nowhere else does the Old Testament provide this much detail about the process of preserving spoken messages in written form.36:1-2 The fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign, 605 BC, was the year Nebuchadnezzar first attacked Jerusalem (see study note on Dan 1:1). • In those days, a scroll was a roll of papyrus or leather strips joined edge to edge and rolled up.

36:3 The Lord gave the people of Judah every opportunity to repent. God wanted the messages of judgment not just to alarm his people, but to awaken them to the judgment they would face if they did not turn from idol-worship. If they heeded the alarm, repented, and sincerely worshiped the one true God, he would forgive their sins and wrongdoings.

36:4 Evidently, Jeremiah was not skilled in writing, so he enlisted the services of a scribe named Baruch. As they sat in their private quarters, Jeremiah repeated message after message from memory. It is not known whether Baruch had a role in composition or arrangement, or whether he simply recorded exactly what Jeremiah dictated.

36:5 Jeremiah was either a prisoner under house arrest, or he had been banished from the Temple grounds.

36:6 The next day of fasting was a national festival, but it is not clear which one (none of the annual festivals occurred in the ninth month; see study note on 36:8-9). Reading the written scroll to the multitude gathered in the Temple would have placed Baruch in danger of arrest or assault.

36:7 Jeremiah repeated the purpose for writing the scroll (36:3) and reading it in public. • Perhaps . . . turn from their evil ways: The people could still receive the Lord’s forgiveness and avert his anger.

36:8-9 Baruch filled the columns of the scroll with Jeremiah’s messages from the Lord. Finally, a day of fasting was announced toward the end of 604 BC. Baruch faithfully obeyed Jeremiah’s order to read the scroll in the Temple, where many people crowded the courtyard.

36:10 Baruch . . . stood in front of the Temple room of Gemariah: That is, Baruch obtained permission from this high official to read to the public. This elevated location near the New Gate entrance was close to where Jeremiah’s public trial had taken place a few years earlier (26:10). • Gemariah had a godly heritage. His father, Shaphan, had participated in Josiah’s reading of the scrolls found in the Temple (2 Kgs 22:8-10).

36:11-13 Micaiah realized the importance of the messages from the Lord that Baruch was reading, so he made sure that the administrative officials of the palace knew what was being said.

36:14-16 The palace officials acted quickly. When they heard Baruch reading Jeremiah’s messages, they were terrified and decided to report the situation to the king.

36:17-18 The officials wanted to know the source of the scroll and its messages.

36:19-20 The officials showed their respect for Jeremiah and Baruch by advising that they should both hide; they showed their respect for the Lord’s messages by placing the scroll in safekeeping while they went to inform the king.

36:21 Jehudi was well educated, and was perhaps a scribe. Only the elite were trained to read and write.

36:23-24 Jehoiakim was so antagonistic and hardened that after three or four columns of the scroll were read, he cut off the section with a sharp knife and threw it into the fire. Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, had responded very differently when the newly discovered Book of the Law was read to him (2 Kgs 22:11).

36:25 The three officials who begged the king not to destroy the scroll probably held positions of great power, because Jehoiakim did not punish them for trying to preserve Jeremiah’s scroll.

36:26 Once the Lord had hidden them, no one betrayed Jeremiah and Baruch. The Lord can protect his servants.

36:27-32 While in hiding, Jeremiah and Baruch rewrote all the messages that had been recorded on the destroyed scroll onto a new roll of papyrus. No human king can destroy God’s words. Instead, Jehoiakim was brought before God’s court and sentenced to death.

36:29-31 To die without heirs or a decent burial was to suffer the worst imaginable fate (see 22:19; Eccl 6:3). Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin ruled for just three months. Unlike his father, Jehoiachin took Jeremiah’s warning seriously and surrendered to the Babylonians, who took him and others to Babylon as captives (Jer 22:24-30; 2 Kgs 24:8-16).