“And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the LORD; Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast?”
My Notes
What Does Jeremiah 36:29 Mean?
"And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the LORD; Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast?" After Jehoiakim burns the scroll of Jeremiah's prophecies, God responds: you burned the scroll AND you objected to its content. The burning was motivated by the message — the king rejected the prophecy that Babylon would come. The physical destruction of the scroll was the king's attempt to destroy the word itself.
The phrase "thou hast burned this roll" (attah saraphta et hammegillah hazzot) records the unprecedented act: a king of Judah BURNED God's word. The scroll contained divine speech — prophecies dictated by God to Jeremiah and written by Baruch. And the king cut it up and fed it to the fire (36:23). The burning was the ultimate act of rejection — not just ignoring the word but destroying its physical form.
The king's complaint — "why hast thou written... the king of Babylon shall certainly come" — reveals the specific content he rejected: the prophecy of Babylonian conquest. The king didn't burn the scroll because of abstract theological disagreement. He burned it because it predicted his kingdom's fall. The content was personally threatening. The burning was self-protective.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What word from God have you tried to destroy — and did it come back stronger?
- 2.What does burning a scroll accomplish against the God who dictated its content?
- 3.How does Jehoiakim's objection being about CONTENT (not authority) describe selective rejection of God's word?
- 4.What does God rewriting the scroll WITH ADDITIONS teach about the indestructibility of His word?
Devotional
You burned the scroll. You burned God's word because you didn't like what it said. Jehoiakim — king of Judah, descendant of David — took a knife, cut the prophecy into strips, and fed it to the fire. And God noticed.
The burning is the most brazen act of rejection in Jeremiah: other people IGNORED God's word. Other kings IMPRISONED the prophet. Jehoiakim BURNED the SCROLL. He destroyed the physical document containing divine speech. He treated God's dictated prophecy as fuel. The word of God became kindling because the king didn't like its content.
The 'why hast thou written therein' reveals the king's real objection: not that Jeremiah was a false prophet but that Jeremiah's prophecy predicted the WRONG OUTCOME. The king wanted prophecies of victory, of preservation, of Jerusalem's survival. He got prophecies of Babylon's coming. The content was the crime. The message was the offense. The king burned the message because the message predicted his destruction.
But God's response (verse 32) is devastating: Jeremiah will write ANOTHER scroll — with ALL the same words PLUS additional ones. The burning accomplished nothing. The word that was destroyed was RE-SPOKEN. The scroll that was burned was REWRITTEN. The king's fire didn't silence God. It produced MORE words. You can burn the scroll. You can't burn the Word.
What word from God have you tried to destroy — and did it come back with additional words added?
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And thou shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah,.... Or, "concerning" (w) him; since the prophet was hid, and he was in…
The king of Babylon ... - These words do not prove that Nebuchadnezzar had not already come, and compelled Jehoiakim to…
We have traced the roll to the people, and to the princes, and here we are to follow it to the king; and we find,
I.…
Why hast thou written, etc.] a quotation, though not verbatim, from Jer 25:9 f.
Cross References
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