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Judah’s Amazing Stubbornness
193
against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might
not hear My words.’”
Verse 15
.
The prophet’s words stirred the anger of those high in authority,
and they imprisoned Jeremiah and placed him in the stocks. Still,
his voice could not be silenced. The word of truth, he declared, “was
in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of
holding it back, and I could not.”
Jeremiah 20:9
.
About this time the Lord commanded Jeremiah to write his
messages. “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have
spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the
day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today. It may be
that when the house of Judah hears of all the disasters that I intend
to do to them, all of them may turn from their evil ways, so that I
may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”
Jeremiah 36:2, 3
, NRSV.
In obedience to this command, Jeremiah called his faithful friend,
Baruch the scribe, and dictated “all the words of the Lord which He
had spoken to him.”
Verse 4
. Written on a parchment scroll, these
words constituted a warning of the sure result of continued apostasy
and an earnest appeal for them to renounce all evil.
Jeremiah, still a prisoner, sent Baruch to read the roll to the
crowds at the temple on a national fast day. “It may be,” the prophet
said, “that they will present their supplication before the Lord, and
everyone will turn from his evil way. For great is the anger and the
fury that the Lord has pronounced against this people.”
Verse 7
.
Baruch read the scroll before all the people. Afterward the
princes summoned the scribe to read the words to them. They
listened with great interest and promised to inform the king, but they
counseled Baruch to hide himself, for they feared the king would try
to kill those who had prepared and delivered the message.
Jehoiakim immediately ordered the scroll read in his hearing.
One of the royal attendants, Jehudi, began reading the words of
reproof and warning. It was winter, and the king and princes were
gathered around an open fire. The king, far from trembling at the
danger facing himself and his people, seized the scroll and in a
frenzy of rage “cut it with the scribe’s knife and cast it into the fire
[154]
... until all the scroll was consumed.”
Verse 23
.
Neither the king nor his princes “was afraid, nor did they tear
their garments.” Certain of the princes, however, “implored the king