Narrative Lectionary Program Year – “God’s Condemnation of Jehoiakim”
Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28
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Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Rev. Dr. Clint Schnekloth
It’s unfortunate that in this narrative lectionary, the reading “cleans up” Jeremiah 36 by then returning to Jeremiah 31. As a commentator, I’m not going to look at Jeremiah 31 at all. I think preachers should stick with Jeremiah 36, because it better represents Jeremiah as a whole text.
Jeremiah’s prophecy is one long proclamation of gloom. He gives us the text that is then modeled in the jeremiad, English for a scathing tirade. That poor dude. God just kept him giving more and more horrible news to report at precisely the moment everything was falling apart. Imagine being told by God to tell people their house is burning down WHILE the house is burning down. And then keep saying it over and over.
We know more about Jeremiah as a man than most of the prophets, at least in part because he had such a great anamnesis, Baruch son of Neriah. We know Jeremiah was a priest from Anathoth near Jerusalem and that he was active from about 620 BCE until after the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 586 (see Robert Alter, 849).
Although Jeremiah does lament social injustice among God’s people, he is also influenced more than other prophets by concerns about idolatry, at least in part because just a couple of years prior to the beginning of his ministry, Josiah had brought back (or brought out) the book of teaching (what we now know as Deuteronomy).
Now to the events of chapter 36 itself. In this chapter, Jeremiah is instructed to write the words of his prophecies on a scroll. It’s a prophecy against Judah, God’s promise to do evil to them for their evil ways. Jeremiah speaks the words, and Baruch writes them down. Jeremiah is confined and can’t go to the temple, so Baruch takes the scroll and reads it to the people and in the house of the Lord. The people hold a fast, but the priests report the prophecy to the nobles.
The nobles summon Baruch to themselves and listen to the prophecy, and then they tell the king. The nobles do Baruch and Jeremiah the kindness of telling them to hide, and then they take the scroll to the king. As he hears the scroll read, he cuts it up into pieces and burns it. But like Fahrenheit 451, Baruch has memorized the words, so burning the book/scroll does not mean it is lost. He later reconstructs it from memory, and even adds additional prophecies, in particular a prophecy that the king will be removed from the throne and his carcass thrown to the parching heat.
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Historical Exegetical Resources
Wikipedia has a spectacular entry on this chapter
The Scroll Must Go On, Joseph Manning
Contemporary Resources
Great Quotes
“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. —Robert Alter”
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Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
Readers: Narrator, Lord, Jeremiah
Narrator: In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
Lord: 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.
Narrator: Then Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him. And Jeremiah ordered Baruch, saying,
Jeremiah: I am prevented from entering the house of the Lord; so you go yourself, and on a fast day in the hearing of the people in the Lord’s house you shall read the words of the Lord from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the people of Judah who come up from their towns. It may be that their plea will come before the Lord, and that all of them will turn from their evil ways, for great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people.
Narrator: And Baruch son of Neriah did all that the prophet Jeremiah ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord’s house. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary; and Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in his winter apartment (it was the ninth month), and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. Now, after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:
Lord: Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which King Jehoiakim of Judah has burned. The days are surely coming,
Narrator: says the Lord,
Lord: when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.