'Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch ... who wrote
therein ... all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had
burned in the fire, and there were added besides unto them many like
words.'--JER. xxxvi. 32.
This story brings us into the presence of the long death agony of the
Jewish monarchy. The wretched Jehoiakim, the last king but two who
reigned in Jerusalem, was put on the throne by the King of Egypt, as
his tributary, and used by him as a buffer to bear the brunt of the
Babylonian invasion. He seems to have had all the vices of Eastern
sovereigns. He was covetous, cruel, tyrannous, lawless, heartless,
senseless. He was lavishing money on a grand palace, built with cedar
and painted in vermilion, when the nation was in its death-throes. He
had neither valour nor goodness, and so little did he understand the
forces at work in his times that he held by the rotten support of Egypt
against the grim power of Babylon, and of course, when the former was
driven like chaff before the assault of the latter, he shared the fate
of his principal, and Judaea was overrun by Babylon, Jerusalem
captured, and the poor creature on the throne bound in chains to be
carried to Babylon, but, as would appear, discovered by Nebuchadnezzar
to be pliable enough to make it safe to leave him behind, as his
vassal. His capture took place but a few months after the incident with
which I am dealing now. It would appear probable that the confusion and
alarm of the Babylonian assault on Egypt had led to a solemn fast in
Jerusalem, at which the nation assembled. Jeremiah, who had been
prophesying for some thirty years, and had already been in peril of his
life from the godless tyrant on the throne, was led to collect, in one
book, his scattered prophecies and read them in the ears of the people
gathered for the fast. That reading had no effect at all on the people.
The roll was then read to the princes, and in them roused fear and
interested curiosity, and kindly desire for the safety of Jeremiah and
Baruch, his amanuensis. It was next read to the king, and he cut the
roll leaf by leaf and threw it on the brasier, not afraid, nor
penitent, but enraged and eager to capture Jeremiah and Baruch. The
burnt roll was reproduced by God's command, 'and there were added
besides ... many like words.'