Jeremiah 36

Today’s Passage: Jeremiah 36

In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, the LORD tells Jeremiah to gather everything He has spoken over the long years of his ministry and set it down on a scroll, in the hope that when Judah hears the whole weight of the warning, the people will turn and be forgiven. Jeremiah, barred from the temple himself, dictates all of it to his faithful scribe Baruch, who then reads the scroll aloud in the house of the LORD on a fast day. The words travel upward: from the crowd, to the officials, and at last to the king in his winter chamber. There Jehoiakim does a chilling thing. As the scroll is read, he calmly slices off each column with a knife and feeds it to the fire, piece by piece, until it is all ashes, and shows no fear at all. But the chapter does not end in the firepot. God simply tells Jeremiah to take another scroll and write it all again, and more besides. This is the great subject before us today: what a man can do to a page, and what he cannot do to the word of God.

As you read, hold this: A man may burn the page, but he cannot burn the word of God, which stands forever.

Jeremiah 36:1–3 (BSB)

¹ In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah until today. ³ Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the calamity I plan to bring upon them, each of them will turn from his wicked way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

Before there is any burning, notice first the tenderness with which the chapter opens. God commands that the whole message be written down not to trap the nation but to save it. Hear that longing word, perhaps. Perhaps when they hear it all together, laid out from beginning to end, they will finally turn, and then, the LORD says, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. This is the heart of God behind every hard word He ever spoke through Jeremiah. He gathers up decades of warning and sets it in permanent form for one reason, that people who have grown deaf to it in pieces might hear it whole and repent while there is still time. Judgment is never what the LORD desires; it is the mercy He offers, in writing, that He longs for us to take.

Jeremiah 36:4–8 (BSB)

⁴ So Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and at the dictation of Jeremiah, Baruch wrote on a scroll all the words that the LORD had spoken to Jeremiah. ⁵ Then Jeremiah commanded Baruch, “I am restricted; I cannot enter the house of the LORD; ⁶ so you are to go to the house of the LORD on a day of fasting, and in the hearing of the people you are to read the words of the LORD from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who are coming from their cities. ⁷ Perhaps they will bring their petition before the LORD, and each one will turn from his wicked way; for great are the anger and fury that the LORD has pronounced against this people.” ⁸ So Baruch son of Neriah did everything that Jeremiah the prophet had commanded him. In the house of the LORD he read the words of the LORD from the scroll.

Here we meet Baruch, and we should not pass him by too quickly, for faithfulness like his is rare and precious. Jeremiah himself is restricted, most likely barred from the temple by the authorities, and so the whole work of reading these dangerous words in the most public place in the city falls to his scribe. Baruch takes it up. He writes down every word without flinching, and then, on the appointed fast day, he stands in the house of the LORD and reads it all aloud where anyone might hear and any enemy might report him. And that word perhaps sounds again in verse seven, the same hopeful longing as before. God has not given up on this people. He is still holding the door open, still hoping they will bring their petition before Him and turn. Much of the good that gets done in this world is done by quiet, faithful souls like Baruch, who simply do everything they are asked and carry the word to the place where it must be heard.

Jeremiah 36:9–13 (BSB)

⁹ Now in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, a fast before the LORD was proclaimed to all the people of Jerusalem and all who had come there from the cities of Judah. ¹⁰ From the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper courtyard at the opening of the New Gate of the house of the LORD, Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the hearing of all the people. ¹¹ When Micaiah son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the LORD from the scroll, ¹² he went down to the scribe’s chamber in the king’s palace, where all the officials were sitting: Elishama the scribe, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials. ¹³ And Micaiah reported to them all the words he had heard Baruch read from the scroll in the hearing of the people.

Now watch how the word begins to travel, spreading from ear to ear the way fire itself spreads. Baruch reads to the common people gathered for the fast, and among them stands a young man named Micaiah, from that same godly family of Shaphan. What he hears moves him so deeply that he cannot keep it to himself; he hurries down to the palace and reports every word to the assembled officials. This is a lovely thing to notice. The word of God, once released, does not sit still. It runs. It passes from a scribe to a crowd, from the crowd to a young man, from the young man to the highest officials of the land, and it will not stop until it reaches the very throne. Kings may try to silence it, but by the time they hear of it, it has already been running through the streets and the palace, doing its work in hearts they cannot see.

Jeremiah 36:14–19 (BSB)

¹⁴ Then all the officials sent word to Baruch through Jehudi son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, saying, “Bring the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people, and come here.” So Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll and went to them. ¹⁵ “Please sit down,” they said, “and read it in our hearing.” So Baruch read it in their hearing. ¹⁶ When they had heard all these words, they turned to one another in fear and said to Baruch, “Surely we must report all these words to the king.” ¹⁷ “Tell us now,” they asked Baruch, “how did you write all these words? Was it at Jeremiah’s dictation?” ¹⁸ “It was at his dictation,” Baruch replied. “He recited all these words to me and I wrote them in ink on the scroll.” ¹⁹ Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must hide yourselves and tell no one where you are.”

See how differently these officials receive the word, for their response is the very one the whole nation was meant to give. When they had heard all the words, they turned to one another in fear. That fear is the right and honest reaction of a soul that has heard the living God speak and knows it. They do not mock, they do not reach for a knife; they tremble, and they know at once that the king must hear this too. And notice their kindness toward the messengers: knowing what may be coming, they warn Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves. Here are men of conscience caught in a hard place, sensing the danger, moved by the word yet unable to change the king who sits above them. Their trembling stands in the account like a rebuke aimed straight at the throne, for they show us how a man ought to answer when the word of God confronts him.

Jeremiah 36:20–23 (BSB)

²⁰ So the officials went to the king in the courtyard. And having stored the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, they reported everything to the king. ²¹ Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king and all the officials who were standing beside him. ²² Since it was the ninth month, the king was sitting in his winter quarters with a fire burning before him. ²³ And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire.

And now we come to the terrible center of the chapter, and we must not rush past it, for there are few pictures in all of Scripture so cold as this one. It is the ninth month, deep in winter, and the king sits warming himself at a fire. Jehudi begins to read. But Jehoiakim will not sit and listen the way the officials did. As each three or four columns are read, he takes a scribe’s knife, calmly cuts them from the scroll, and drops them into the flames, and he does this again and again until the whole scroll is gone. Think of the deliberateness of it, the awful patience. This is not a man who loses his temper and throws the scroll in the fire in a single rage. This is a man who whittles the word of God away column by column, unhurried, warming his hands as the very warnings of the Almighty curl into ash before him. His father Josiah had torn his robe at the reading of God’s word; this son takes a knife to the word itself. It is one of the boldest acts of contempt in the whole Bible, and we shall see in a moment how little it accomplished.

Jeremiah 36:24–26 (BSB)

²⁴ Yet in hearing all these words, the king and his servants did not become frightened or tear their garments. ²⁵ Even though Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. ²⁶ Instead, the king commanded Jerahmeel, a son of the king, as well as Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the LORD had hidden them.

Now the Scripture puts its finger on the true horror of the scene, and it is not the burning but the calm. Yet in hearing all these words, the king and his servants did not become frightened or tear their garments. There it is. The officials had trembled, but the king felt nothing. Some of those good men, Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah, even dared to plead with him not to burn the scroll, but he would not listen. This is a heart gone hard, and hardness of heart is a more dreadful thing than open rebellion, for it can sit unmoved under the very voice of God. And then the king, having failed to destroy the message, turns to destroy the messengers, commanding that Baruch and Jeremiah be seized. But hear the quiet, glorious line that closes the verse: the LORD had hidden them. The king could reach the scroll, but he could not reach the men God was covering, any more than he could reach the word God had spoken. The knife and the soldiers both fall short of the hand of the Almighty.

Jeremiah 36:27–28 (BSB)

²⁷ After the king had burned the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: ²⁸ “Take another scroll and rewrite on it the very words that were on the original scroll, which Jehoiakim king of Judah has burned.

And here is the LORD’s answer to the firepot, and it is so simple that it almost makes us smile through the solemnity. The king has burned the scroll to ashes, and God says, in effect, write it again. That is all. There is no panic in heaven at the loss of the scroll, no scrambling to recover what was destroyed. The word of the LORD comes to Jeremiah as calmly as ever it did, saying take another scroll and put the very same words on it. What a picture this is of the futility of every attempt to be rid of God’s truth. The king spent his winter evening carefully cutting the word (דָּבָר) dabar, pronounced dah-VAR. Strong's H1697, word, thing, matter. This little word runs all through the chapter like a golden thread, for the LORD commands Jeremiah to write “all the words” He has spoken, and it is these dabarim that Jehoiakim tries so hard to burn away. What makes this word so weighty in the Hebrew mind is that dabar is never merely a puff of breath or a set of letters on a page. When God speaks a dabar, it carries His own power and purpose into the world, and it does the thing it was sent to do. The scroll can burn, for the scroll is only ink and skin, but the dabar written on it belongs to God and cannot perish with the paper. That is why the king’s fire was such a foolish thing. He could destroy the vessel that held the word, but the word itself was never his to destroy, and it stood over him and outlasted him and buried him. to pieces and feeding it to the fire, and it cost the LORD nothing but a single sentence to bring the whole thing back. You may burn every copy of a word that God has determined to speak, and He will only speak it again. The truth of God does not depend on the survival of the page it is written on.

Jeremiah 36:29–31 (BSB)

²⁹ You are to proclaim concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah that this is what the LORD says: You have burned the scroll and said, ‘Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon would surely come and destroy this land and deprive it of man and beast?’ ³⁰ Therefore this is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night. ³¹ I will punish him and his descendants and servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the residents of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the calamity about which I warned them but they did not listen.”

The rewritten scroll now carries a word it did not carry before, a word spoken directly to the man with the knife, and it is a sobering one. Because Jehoiakim burned the word rather than bow to it, judgment does not merely stand; it deepens. The very calamity he tried to unwrite by burning the page will now fall on him with a personal edge. His line will not hold David’s throne, and his own body will lie unburied, exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night, the same winter cold he sat so comfortably beside as he burned God’s word. There is a fearful justice in that. When a man treats the word of God with contempt, he does not escape it; he only calls down more upon himself. The warning ignored becomes the warning multiplied, for God will not be mocked, and the fire a proud heart builds against His truth ends up consuming the one who lit it.

Jeremiah 36:32 (BSB)

³² Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, and at Jeremiah’s dictation he wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.

And so the chapter closes, not with the triumph of the king but with the triumph of the word, and I want you to feel the quiet glory of this last verse. Jeremiah takes another scroll, Baruch takes up his pen again, and every word the fire had eaten is written down once more. But look closely at the final line, for it is the whole point of the story: and many similar words were added to them. The king’s fire did not shrink the word of God by a single syllable. It made it longer. What he burned came back fuller than before, with more warning, more truth, more weight than the scroll he had destroyed. This is what always happens when men set themselves against the word of the LORD. They cannot diminish it; they only cause it to multiply. The scroll Jehoiakim burned that winter night is lost forever, but the second scroll, larger than the first, we hold in our hands to this day, and his knife has become nothing but a lesson in how surely the word of God endures.