Jeremiah 36 explained: The King Burns the Scroll

Warnings put in writing (vv. 1-8)

Around 605 BC, after Babylon had become the region's great power, Jeremiah is told to gather some twenty years of his messages into one scroll, hoping the people will turn back and be forgiven. He dictates it to his assistant Baruch and sends him to read it, because Jeremiah is barred from the temple for reasons the text does not explain.

Read aloud on a fast day (vv. 9-10)

About a year later a public day of fasting is called, likely out of fear of the Babylonian army, so crowds fill the temple. Baruch reads from a room belonging to Gemariah, son of Shaphan, the royal secretary who once read the rediscovered law book to the good king Josiah.

Officials hear and fear (vv. 11-19)

Gemariah's son reports the reading to the king's senior officials, who have Baruch read it to them and are shaken. They check that the words truly came from Jeremiah, then warn both men to hide before the king hears.

The king burns it (vv. 20-26)

Sitting by a fire pot in winter, Jehoiakim slices off each few columns as they are read and burns them until the whole scroll is gone, even as some officials beg him to stop. The note that no one tore their clothes recalls his father Josiah, who tore his clothes in grief when the law was read to him.

Judgment and a new scroll (vv. 27-32)

Jeremiah announces that Jehoiakim's line will lose the throne and his body will lie unburied. His son ruled only three months before being taken to Babylon, but how literally the rest came true is debated, and many scholars see the rewritten, expanded scroll as part of how the book of Jeremiah itself took shape.

Key verse: Jeremiah 36:23

Something to think about

When someone tells you something hard you would rather not hear, what makes the difference between listening and wanting to burn the message?