The Scroll in the Fire

A winter evening. A fire glows in a brazier in the king's room. A man is reading aloud from a long scroll. And every time he finishes a few columns, the king leans over with a small knife, slices them off, and drops them into the flames.

It is the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, about six hundred and five years before Christ. Babylon is rising in the north. For more than twenty years the prophet Jeremiah has warned God's people: turn away from idols and injustice, or disaster will come. Now God gives him a new instruction. Take a scroll, God says, and write down every word I have spoken to you. Perhaps when the people hear all the trouble I plan to bring, each one will turn from their evil way, and I will forgive them. So Jeremiah calls his friend Baruch, a scribe. Jeremiah speaks, and Baruch writes it all down, in ink, line after line.

But there's a problem. Jeremiah has been barred from the temple. So he sends Baruch. Go, he says, on a day of fasting when people from all the towns of Judah are there, and read the scroll aloud. Months later, in the ninth month, a fast is called. Crowds fill the temple courts. Baruch goes up to a room belonging to an official named Gemariah, by the New Gate, and reads the whole scroll so the people can hear. Gemariah's son Micaiah listens to every word, and then runs to the palace, where the royal officials are meeting. He tells them everything. They send a man named Jehudi: bring Baruch, and bring the scroll.

Baruch sits down in front of the officials and reads it to them. When they hear it, they turn to each other, afraid. We must tell the king all this, they say. But first they ask Baruch: how did you write it? He answers simply: Jeremiah spoke every word to me, and I wrote them with ink in the book. And the officials, who know what kind of king they serve, give him a warning. “Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah; and let no man know where ye be.” They leave the scroll safe in a scribe's room, and go to the king.

King Jehoiakim is sitting in his winter house, with the fire burning in front of him. He sends Jehudi to fetch the scroll, and Jehudi reads it aloud to the king and all his officials. And after every three or four columns, the king cuts them off with a scribe's knife and throws them into the fire, until the whole scroll is gone. Three of the officials beg him not to burn it. He won't listen. Nobody tears their clothes in grief. Nobody is afraid. Instead, the king orders the arrest of Baruch and Jeremiah. But the Bible says, simply: the Lord hid them. And then God speaks to Jeremiah again. Take another scroll. Write on it all the words that were on the first one, the one Jehoiakim burned. So Jeremiah speaks, and Baruch writes again. Every word comes back. And many more words are added. A king can burn a scroll. He cannot burn God's word.

Ancient scrolls were made of papyrus or leather, rolled around themselves, and the writing ran in columns across the length of the roll. The word translated leaves in the King James Bible is the Hebrew word delet, which usually means a door. Here it means one of those door-shaped columns of writing. So the king was cutting off the scroll a few columns at a time as it was read, and burning it piece by piece.

You'll find this story in Jeremiah chapter thirty-six. A king who tried to destroy God's word, and a prophet and a scribe who simply wrote it again. So here is a question to carry with you. When God's word says something you don't want to hear, how will you respond?