Jeremiah 36:5,6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up It is not said, that “he was shut up in prison” at this time: but barely that he was shut up, or confined, as עצור signifies, that is, under some such confinement, or restraint, as precluded his going to the house of the Lord. Therefore go thou and read in the roll, &c., upon the fasting day Not the day of the yearly fast, mentioned Leviticus 23:27, but on a day appointed for a national fast, of which we read more, Jeremiah 36:9, proclaimed by Jehoiakim, probably to avert the calamity hanging over them from the Chaldeans, or from the drought. And it was undoubtedly because of the concourse of people which the prophet knew would then be in the temple that he chose that day, when some would be present from all parts of Judah. It was the opinion, indeed, of Archbishop Usher and Dean Prideaux, that the roll was twice read by Baruch in the temple, and that the first reading was on the tenth day of the seventh month, being the great day of atonement, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim. “But this,” says Blaney, “I am persuaded is a mistake; and that the reasons urged by the latter of those two learned men, in support of this hypothesis, are by no means conclusive. I see no good reason for concluding that the roll was read publicly in the temple more than once; nor does Josephus, who speaks of its being read in the ninth month of the fifth year, (Antiquities, lib. 10. cap. 6,) give the least hint of its having been read before; if it had been, I think we might naturally expect to be informed how it was received by those who heard it the first time, as well as by those who heard it the second. From the utter silence on this head, the contrary may be presumed, and we may fairly conjecture the case to have been pretty nearly as follows. Toward the latter end of Jehoiakim's fourth year, after Nebuchadnezzar had replaced him on the throne, and had left the city, it is possible that both king and people, freed from former apprehensions, began again to indulge their wicked inclinations; and therefore Jeremiah was ordered to lay before them at once all the evils that still threatened them, and from which nothing but speedy repentance could protect them. In consequence of this charge, he caused Baruch to write a collection of all his prophecies, and to have them in readiness to read at a fit opportunity. Perhaps the collection was not fully completed before the fifth year was already begun; but the season pitched on, as most convenient for reading this tremendous publication, was the day on which the people should assemble to deplore, before God, the calamity with which he had visited them just twelve months before. Accordingly, at that time Baruch read openly in the temple what he had written, and the immediate consequences of such reading are here related at large.”