Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah 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.
There were added besides ... many like words. Sinners gain nothing but additional punishment by setting aside the word of Yahweh. The law was similarly rewritten, after the first tables had been broken owing to Israel's idolatry (Exodus 32:15-16; Exodus 31:18; Exodus 34:1; Exodus 34:23). God himself wrote them in the first instance, and Moses by his direction wrote the same words on the second tables (Deuteronomy 31:9).
Remarks:
(1) The writing of the Word of God is a most precious safeguard against the uncertainties of oral tradition (Jeremiah 36:4). God so directed the sacred writers that they should be able to remember all that otherwise they might, have forgotten, thereby stereotyping for the Church of all ages the originally spoken "words" of prophecy; God also, while not lettering the individual writer as to style so superintended the choice of the words and modes of expression that nothing should be in the original autographs which would not be suited for the exact revelation of His will, and nothing should be omitted which is necessary for "doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).
(2) The occasion chosen by Jeremiah for his solemn appeal in the words of God Himself, read by Baruch in the hearing of the people, was one in which, if ever, they were likely to be in a humble susceptible state, and open to serious impressions. A public fast, appointed for national humiliation under national calamities, some of which had already overtaken the state, and others were evidently impending, was surely a season wherein men might be expected to be in a softened frame. But outward circumstances cannot of themselves change men inwardly. The people themselves seen to have gotten the fast appointed: so far their conduct seemed promising (note, Jeremiah 36:9). Jeremiah and Baruch did their part, declaring to the vast assemblage in the Lord's house that great was the fury that the Lord had pronounced against Israel (Jeremiah 36:7), if so be that the people might be collectively and individually moved to "return from their evil way" (Jeremiah 36:7), and that so the Lord might abate the fierceness of His threatened anger. What temporary effect the reading of the words of the Lord produced on the people we are not told: that it did not produce a lasting effect we know from their subsequent impenitence and ruin.
(3) The princes, instead of penitently going to the temple, where Baruch was, as they ought, when they heard of what he had read, from Michaiah, summoned Baruch to come to them to the chamber where they were all seated in council (Jeremiah 36:11-14). Pride prevents many a man from doing what conscience suggests. The fear of the opinion of his fellow-men deters him from acting as one who fears God. It is true, on Baruch's reading, they turned in fear one to the other (Jeremiah 36:16, note), and said that they would inform the king of the threats of God. Influenced also by kindly feeling to Baruch and Jeremiah, they advised them to hide themselves from the vengeance of the king. But they evidently thought more of the vengeance of the king, who could kill the body, than of the vengeance of the King of kings, who can kill both body and soul in hell. Hence, when the king, who was altogether hardened in impenitence, cut with his penknife, and cast into the fire, the successive columns of the roll, of prophecies, until the whole was consumed (Jeremiah 36:23), but three out of the whole number of princes remonstrated (Jeremiah 36:25), and this but faintly. We read not of one of them humbling himself before God because of the coming judgments. And as for the servants immediately about the person of the king, they did not even evince the temporary alarm which the princes had at first evinced on hearing the prophecies (Jeremiah 36:24).
(4) As to the king, observe first how the ungodly, though they would gladly flee from God, are yet moved by a kind of involuntary impulse to wish to hear His threatenings. Guilty Jehoiakim must hear what will condemn him, and what cannot but strike a secret thrill of terror into his heart, in spite of all his hardihood. Bad kings never want unscrupulous agents like Jehudi, to execute their evil purposes. Had he listened to God speaking to him once more through the intercession of Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah (Jeremiah 36:25), he might even yet have been saved: but no! in judicial blindness, he hardens himself to his temporal and eternal ruin. No wonder that reprobates dislike the Word of God, which condemns their impenitence and unbelief. It cannot alter its tone toward them until they alter their course so as to accord with its precepts. As the threatening word of the Lord, when heard by godly Josiah, produced fear in him, humility, and a tender heart; so, on the contrary, when heard by ungodly Jehoiakim, it brought out all his latent hatred of it, and of God's messengers who proclaimed it.
This two-fold effect on opposite sides the double-edged sword of the Word has in all ages produced (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). But abortive was his rage against it and them. If he could, he would have burned them, as he did the roll of God's word written by them; a treatment which the Bible and its followers have often since experienced at the hands of pagan and pagan Rome. The Lord hid Baruch and Jeremiah in the secret of His presence from the pride of man (Jeremiah 36:26; Psalms 31:20). Jehoiakim could not touch a hair of their head. And, so far from making the word of God of none effect by his impotent act of profanity in destroying the written word, he only brought its curse upon himself with redoubled weight. As he had cast the roll into the heat of the fire, so the freshly-written roll doomed "his dead body to be cast out (in righteous retribution) to the heat in the day, and to the frost in the night." Not one word of all the threatened evil was abated on the writing of the roll, but, "there were added besides many like words." O, how hard it is for the sinner "to kick against the pricks"! He gains nothing, and cannot set aside one tittle of the Word of God, by fighting against it, but only adds to his own condemnation. Who ever hardened himself against the Lord and prospered?