1And it happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2“Take for yourself a book-scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah and concerning all the nations from the day that I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, to this day. 3Perhaps the house of Judah will listen to all the evil that I plan to do to them so that they may turn back each from his evil way, and I shall forgive their crime and their offense.” 4And Jeremiah called to Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him on a book-scroll. 5And Jeremiah charged Baruch, saying: “I am confined. I cannot come to the house of the LORD. 6And you instead shall come and read out from the scroll that you have written from my mouth all the words of the LORD in the hearing of the people in the house of the LORD on the fast-day, and you shall also read it out in the hearing of all Judah who come from their towns. 7Perhaps their supplication will fall before the LORD and they will turn back each from his evil way, for great are the anger and the wrath that the LORD has spoken concerning this people.” 8And Baruch did as all that Jeremiah had charged him to read out from the book the words of the LORD in the house of the LORD. 9And it happened in the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people coming from the towns of Judah proclaimed a fast before the LORD. 10And Baruch read out from the book the words of the LORD in the house of the LORD in the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance to the gate of the house of the LORD in the hearing of all the people. 11And Micaiah son of Gemariah son of Shaphan heard all the words of the LORD from the book. 12And he went down to the house of the king to the chamber of the scribe, and, look, all the nobles were sitting there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah son of Shemaiah and Elnathan son of Achbor and Gemariah son of Shaphan and Zedekiah son of Hananiah and all the nobles. 13And Micaiah told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch had read out from the book in the hearing of the people. 14And all the nobles sent to Baruch Jehudi son of Shelemiah son of Cushi, saying, “The scroll from which you read in the hearing of the people, take it in your hand and go.” And Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand and came to them. 15And they said to him, “Sit down, pray, and read it in our hearing.” And Baruch read it out in their hearing. 16And it happened when they heard all the words, that they turned in fear to each other, and they said to Baruch, “We will surely tell all these words to the king.” 17And Baruch they asked, saying, “Tell us, pray, how did you write all these words from his mouth?” 18And Baruch said to them, “With his mouth he read out to me all these words, and I wrote it in the book with ink.” 19And the nobles said to Baruch, “Go, hide, you and Jeremiah, that no man know where you are.” 20And they came to the king in the court, and the scroll they laid aside in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and they told all these words in the hearing of the king. 21And the king sent Jehudi to take the scroll from the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and Jehudi read it out in the hearing of the king and in the hearing of all the nobles standing in attendance upon the king. 22And the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, and fire in the brazier before him was burning. 23And it happened, as Jehudi read three or four columns, he would cut them out with a scribe’s knife and fling them into the fire that was in the brazier until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. 24And the king and all his servants hearing all these words were not afraid and did not rend their garments. 25And though Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah implored the king not to burn the scroll, he did not listen to them. 26And the king charged Jerahmeel the king’s son and Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdel to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD had hidden them. 27And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words that Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, “Again, take for yourself another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned. 28And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, you shall say: Thus said the LORD, You burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why did you write in it, saying, the king of Babylonia shall surely come and lay waste to this land and make man and beast cease from it?’ 29Therefore, thus said the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: No one of his shall sit on the throne of David, and his carcass shall be flung to the parching heat by day and to the frost by night. 30And I will reckon his crime against him and against his seed and against his servants and bring down on them and on all the dwellers of Jerusalem and on the men of Judah all the evil that I spoke concerning them, yet they do not heed. 31And Jeremiah had taken another scroll and had given it to Baruch son Neriah the scribe, and he wrote on it all the words of the book that Jehoiakim had burned in the fire, and many words of the sort were added.
CHAPTER 36 NOTES
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1. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This is 605 B.C.E., when Nebuchadrezzar defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish and consequently threatened the lands to the west.
2. Take for yourself a book-scroll. The Hebrew construct form is megilat-sefer. Megilah is a scroll; sefer is any written document, and in some contexts it can also mean scroll. Here it is actually a book because it contains some two decades of Jeremiah’s prophecies, and perhaps that is why the double form is used. The physical existence, moreover, of the book as a scroll will be highlighted as the story unfolds.
4. Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah. “From the mouth” obviously means “from the dictation,” but this translation preserves the physical concreteness of the Hebrew idiom. The present chapter offers a rare perspective on the mechanics of transmission of biblical prophecy. Baruch, elsewhere given the epithet of “scribe,” was probably a professional scribe, but he also served as Jeremiah’s personal amanuensis, in all likelihood not for pay but out of devotion to the prophet. Jeremiah may well have had some form of abbreviated written notations of his earlier prophecies, though we should not exclude the possibility that he knew them all by heart. (One recalls the instance of the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, who for years did not dare to commit his poems to writing during Stalin’s reign of terror but memorized them all, as did his wife.)
5. I am confined. As before, this indicates some sort of confinement on the palace grounds in which he has a certain amount of freedom of movement and visitors had access to him.
6. the fast-day. Given the Babylonian military threat, it is likely that a general fast had been proclaimed in order to implore God for help.
9. in the ninth month. This would be Kislev, corresponding to December—hence the winter chambers and the burning brazier in what follows.
13. And Micaiah told them all the words. Despite the phrase “all the words,” this has to mean that he told them the general sense of Jeremiah’s prophecies because he scarcely would have been expected to have memorized the entire book as he listened.
17. how did you write all these words from his mouth? The courtiers express amazement at Baruch’s ability to produce this long text. He responds (verse 18) by explaining that it was a simple matter of dictation, the prophet reading or reciting out loud and the scribe transcribing everything with pen and ink on the scroll. It is possible that Baruch possessed a special skill of rapid writing. Elsewhere in the Bible, a “rapid scribe’s pen” is an idiom for the work of a skilled scribe.
19. Go, hide. They immediately understand that these prophecies predicting the imminent destruction of the kingdom will be regarded as seditious by the king and could endanger the lives of both the prophet and the scribe.
22. the winter house. This is probably palace chambers exposed to the sun and hence better suited for residence in the cold months.
the brazier. The Hebrew ʾaḥ is an Egyptian loanword. Although in later Hebrew it came to mean “hearth” or “fireplace,” ancient palaces had neither hearths nor chimneys, so this would have to be a freestanding brazier.
23. he would cut them out with a scribe’s knife and fling them into the fire. It is not entirely clear whether the scroll was papyrus or parchment. Many scholars favor papyrus because it would have burned more readily. In that case, the “scribe’s knife” would be the instrument used for cutting out sheets of papyrus. But taʿar, the word used here for “knife,” elsewhere means “razor,” and it derives from a verbal stem that means “to raze” or “remove to the roots.” Such an instrument could be used to scrape away words or letters on parchment as a kind of eraser.
24. were not afraid. They did not take the dire warnings of the prophecies to heart but instead dismissed them, demonstrating their view of the nullity of the prophet’s words by burning them.
26. but the LORD had hidden them. Obviously, it was Jeremiah and Baruch who hid themselves, but the narrative report seeks to attribute the agency to God, as though there were divine intervention on behalf of the two men.
27. take for yourself another scroll and write on it all the former words. The story vividly illustrates the futility of censorship. The scroll has been consumed in fire, column by column. Yet the words of the scroll persist in the mind of the prophet, and he is again enjoined to dictate them to his able scribe. Neither Jeremiah nor Baruch is intimidated by the threat of royal action against them.
29. his carcass shall be flung. Pointedly, the same verb, “flung,” that was used for tossing the pieces of the scroll into the fire is now part of a grim prophecy of the king’s fate.
30. his servants. As is almost invariably the case in royal contexts, this general term here indicates “courtiers.”
31. and many words of the sort were added. In a gesture of defiance of the king’s attempt to eradicate these prophecies, not only are they again written down verbatim, but in this second scroll, additional prophecies with the same message of destruction are included.