Jeremiah 36

The Burned Scroll

Jeremiah's twenty-three years of warnings are written on a scroll and read in the temple, and the king burns it a column at a time. The Lord has the whole thing written again, with more.

The scroll was written in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (about 605 B.C.); it was read in the ninth month of the fifth year, and the king burned it that winter Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Jeremiah 36 goes back in time. Like chapter 35, it leaves the siege under Zedekiah (chapter 34) and returns to Jehoiakim, the king before him (Jer. 36:1).

Jeremiah 36 goes back in time. Like chapter 35, it leaves the siege under Zedekiah (chapter 34) and returns to Jehoiakim, the king before him (Jer. 36:1). The Church's heading gives the whole story: Baruch writes the prophecies and reads them in the temple, the king burns the book, and Jeremiah dictates them again “and adds many more.”

The date matters. In Jehoiakim's fourth year Nebuchadrezzar became king of Babylon (Jer. 25:1) and destroyed Pharaoh Necho's army at Carchemish (Jer. 46:2); that battle was fought in 605 B.C. Jehoiakim had ruled as Egypt's vassal; now Egypt had lost to a new power. It is exactly then that the Lord tells Jeremiah to write down everything he has said since the thirteenth year of Josiah, some twenty-three years of preaching.

Jeremiah himself is “shut up” and cannot go to the temple, so the story is about three other people: Baruch, who writes and reads; the princes, who are frightened; and King Jehoiakim, who is not. The chapter is the book's own account of how a prophet's words came to be a book.

The thread through the chapter

Jeremiah 36 asks what happens to the word of God when a king will not hear it.

Jeremiah 36 asks what happens to the word of God when a king will not hear it. The chapter's answer comes in a sequence of reactions to the same words. Baruch reads them aloud. Michaiah hears them and carries them to the princes, who hear them and are afraid (Jer. 36:16). The king hears the same words and cuts them up and burns them (Jer. 36:23), and verse 24 says plainly that neither he nor his servants were afraid or tore their clothes.

The burning does not change what the words say. The Lord's reply, in verses 27–32, is to have them written again, with “many like words” added, and to name the king's own judgment. The fire destroys a scroll and nothing else. The chapter ends with the words restored and enlarged: the Lord's word is not at the mercy of whoever holds the scroll, a truth the Doctrine and Covenants states in the Lord's own voice (D&C 1:38).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–8

Write it all down

In plain words

In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim the Lord told Jeremiah to take a scroll and write on it every word He had spoken to him about Israel, Judah, and all the nations since the days of Josiah. Perhaps Judah would hear all the evil the Lord planned and turn from their wicked ways, and then He could forgive them. Jeremiah called Baruch, who wrote it as Jeremiah dictated. Jeremiah told him, “I am shut up and cannot go into the Lord's house. So you go and read the scroll to the people at the Lord's house on a fast day, and to everyone who comes in from the towns. Perhaps they will bring their plea to the Lord and each turn from his evil way, for the Lord's anger against this people is great.” Baruch did what Jeremiah told him.

1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Context #

Why 605 B.C. matters

The scroll is written the year the world changed for Judah: about 605 B.C., when Nebuchadrezzar became king of Babylon and defeated Egypt at Carchemish.

Jeremiah ties the dates together himself. Jehoiakim's fourth year “was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon” (Jer. 25:1), and the same year is the year Nebuchadrezzar smote Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish (Jer. 46:2). The battle was fought in 605 B.C., and after it “Judah became a vassal of the new conquerors.” The Lord's order to write comes at the moment the “king of Babylon” (verse 29) stops being a distant prophecy and becomes a visible power.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Enrichment G: Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

2 Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.

Language #

Twenty-three years on a scroll

“A roll of a book” is a scroll: sheets of leather or papyrus sewn into a long strip and wound around a stick, so that a reader unrolled one end as he rolled up the other.

“A roll of a book” is a scroll: sheets of leather or papyrus sewn into a long strip and wound around a stick, so that a reader unrolled one end as he rolled up the other. Some ran more than a hundred feet.

What goes on this scroll is the whole of Jeremiah's ministry so far, “from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.” Jeremiah himself counts those years in the same fourth year of Jehoiakim: “From the thirteenth year of Josiah… even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come unto me” (Jer. 25:3). He had delivered those words aloud, “rising early and speaking” (the same verse); now they are to be written.

Sources: “Scroll”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.

Related Scriptures #

Written so that they might turn

The scroll is meant to bring Judah back, not just to document a warning.

The scroll is meant to bring Judah back, not just to document a warning. The Lord's hope is stated twice, in His own words in verse 3 and in Jeremiah's in verse 7: “It may be… that they may return every man from his evil way.”

Behind that hope is a principle the Lord had stated earlier: if a nation He has pronounced against “turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (Jer. 18:8). The “evil” of verse 3 is therefore not an unconditional decree; the phrase “refers to the consequences that would come to the people because of their evil choices.” If they turn, the Lord says, He can “forgive their iniquity and their sin.” The conditions are set before the story of the burning even begins.

Sources: Unit 28: Day 1, Jeremiah 34–41, Old Testament Study Guide for Home-Study Seminary Students (2015). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.

Context #

Baruch the scribe

Baruch, whose name means “Blessed,” is Jeremiah's scribe, and the chapter depends on him.

Baruch, whose name means “Blessed,” is Jeremiah's scribe, and the chapter depends on him. Elsewhere he receives the deed of purchase in Jeremiah's field transaction (Jer. 32:12), writes and reads the scroll here, and goes with Jeremiah to Egypt (Jer. 43:6).

Chapter 45 is his own short story, and it belongs with this one: it is dated to this same fourth year, “when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah” (Jer. 45:1). Baruch cried, “Woe is me now!” (Jer. 45:3), and the Lord answered, “seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not” (Jer. 45:5). The dating ties Baruch's grief to the writing of these words of judgment, and he is promised only that his life will be spared wherever he goes.

Sources: “Baruch”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

5 And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I cannot go into the house of the LORD:

Language #

Why Jeremiah cannot go to the temple

“Shut up” means that Jeremiah is restrained in some way, though the chapter does not say how or by whom.

“Shut up” means that Jeremiah is restrained in some way, though the chapter does not say how or by whom. The Hebrew means “under arrest, or in confinement” (the footnote in the Church's edition), and he was “confined and unable to speak the Lord's words at the temple.”

The Hebrew word is the same one used when Jeremiah is later “shut up in the court of the prison” (Jer. 33:1; Jer. 39:15). But in this chapter the princes tell him to “hide” (verse 19) and the Lord hides him (verse 26), so whatever the restraint was, it did not fully confine him. The text offers no reason for it, and a reader should not supply one. What it does explain is the whole design of the chapter: since the prophet cannot go to the people, the words go in writing, in another man's voice.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Old Testament Institute Teacher Manual (2026).

6 Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the LORD in the ears of the people in the LORD’s house upon the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities.

7 It may be they will present their supplication before the LORD, and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the anger and the fury that the LORD hath pronounced against this people.

8 And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the LORD in the LORD’s house.

Verses 9–19

Read in the temple, heard by the princes

In plain words

In the ninth month of the fifth year a fast was proclaimed for everyone in Jerusalem and everyone who had come in from Judah's towns. Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court by the New Gate, so all the people could hear. Gemariah's son Michaiah heard it all and went down to the scribe's room in the king's palace, where all the officials were sitting. He told them everything he had heard. They sent Jehudi to Baruch with the order: “Bring the scroll you read to the people, and come.” Baruch did. “Sit down and read it to us,” they said, and he read. When they had heard it they turned to one another in fear. “We must tell the king about all this.” They asked, “Tell us, how did you write all this? Did he dictate it?” “He dictated every word,” Baruch said, “and I wrote it in ink on the scroll.” The officials said, “You and Jeremiah, go and hide. Don't let anyone know where you are.”

9 And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the LORD to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem.

Context #

A fast in the ninth month

This fast is a special one proclaimed for the occasion; it is not one of the calendar's regular fasts.

This fast is a special one proclaimed for the occasion; it is not one of the calendar's regular fasts. The ninth month falls in about December, so it is the cold season (verse 22), and the law prescribed only the Day of Atonement, in the seventh month, as a fast. Why it was called is not stated, and it is “doubtful” whether the king or the priests proclaimed it; people from all the towns of Judah came into Jerusalem for it.

That is exactly the audience Jeremiah had in mind when he told Baruch to read on “the fasting day” (Jer. 36:6). The footnote to that verse in the Church's edition points to Nehemiah's fast, where the people assembled “with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them” (Neh. 9:1). The setting made a call to turn about as plausible as it would ever be.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

10 Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the LORD, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher court, at the entry of the new gate of the LORD’s house, in the ears of all the people.

Context #

The family of Shaphan

The man in whose temple room Baruch reads belongs to a family that had once brought the Lord's word to a king.

The man in whose temple room Baruch reads belongs to a family that had once brought the Lord's word to a king. Shaphan the scribe read the newly found book of the law to King Josiah, who “rent his clothes” (2 Kgs. 22:10–11). Josiah then sent Shaphan's son Ahikam and a man named Achbor to the prophetess Huldah (2 Kgs. 22:12–14).

The same names return here. Gemariah, the owner of the chamber, is “the son of Shaphan the scribe”; his son Michaiah is the one who reports to the princes (verses 11–13); and one of those princes is Elnathan “the son of Achbor.” Gemariah was “probably a brother of Ahikam the son of Shaphan,” the man who elsewhere protected Jeremiah from being given to the people (Jer. 26:24). Elnathan, though, had once been sent by Jehoiakim to fetch the prophet Urijah back from Egypt to be killed (Jer. 26:22–23). The court is not made up only of enemies. It includes, it seems, the sons of the men who served Josiah, and they are caught between the scroll and the king.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

11 When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of the LORD,

12 Then he went down into the king’s house, into the scribe’s chamber: and, lo, all the princes sat there, even Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes.

13 Then Michaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.

14 Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying, Take in thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came unto them.

15 And they said unto him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears.

16 Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they were afraid both one and other, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words.

17 And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth?

18 Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.

19 Then said the princes unto Baruch, Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah; and let no man know where ye be.

Context #

Why the princes say hide

The princes believe the words are serious and the king is dangerous, so they tell Baruch and Jeremiah to disappear before they report to him.

The princes believe the words are serious and the king is dangerous, so they tell Baruch and Jeremiah to disappear before they report to him. The text does not state their reason, but the book supplies a precedent. Another prophet, Urijah, had prophesied “according to all the words of Jeremiah”; when the king heard him he sought to kill him, and when Urijah fled to Egypt the king had him brought back and killed (Jer. 26:20–23). That case “shows the wickedness of King Jehoiakim.” That the princes expected the same treatment is an inference from the text, not something it says.

The princes' advice and the Lord's act are the same thing from two sides. They say “hide”; verse 26 says, “the LORD hid them.” The chapter is careful not to let the king's order succeed.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

Verses 20–26

The king burns the scroll

In plain words

The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe and went to tell the king everything. The king sent Jehudi to get it, and Jehudi read it to the king and to all the officials standing beside him. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in his winter apartment with a fire burning on the hearth in front of him. Whenever Jehudi finished three or four columns, the king cut them off with a scribe's knife and threw them in the fire, until the whole scroll was gone. Neither the king nor his servants were afraid or tore their clothes. Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah urged the king not to burn it, but he would not listen. He ordered three men to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah, but the Lord hid them.

20 And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the ears of the king.

21 So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the scribe’s chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king.

22 Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.

23 And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.

Language #

Column by column

The king does not burn the scroll in one motion but cuts it up as it is read, a few columns at a time.

The king does not burn the scroll in one motion but cuts it up as it is read, a few columns at a time. The word translated “leaves” is the common Hebrew word for “doors,” and the lexicon lists this verse as an example of its use for a column of a manuscript, “from shape.” This is exactly how a scroll was made: “a series of parallel columns, which answered to the pages of a modern book.” The “penknife” is, in Hebrew, literally the scribe's knife.

The king is sitting in “the winterhouse,” a part of the palace set aside for the cold months (compare Amos 3:15), with a fire burning on the hearth in the cold ninth month. The burning is done at leisure: the reader reads, the king cuts, the fire takes each piece, and the scroll is gone column by column as the king listens.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. “Roll”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

24 Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.

Related Scriptures #

Josiah and Jehoiakim

The verse points back to Josiah, Jehoiakim's father. When Josiah heard the book of the law read, “he rent his clothes” (2 Kgs. 22:11); here the king and his servants who hear…

The verse points back to Josiah, Jehoiakim's father. When Josiah heard the book of the law read, “he rent his clothes” (2 Kgs. 22:11); here the king and his servants who hear Jeremiah's words are “not afraid, nor rent their garments.” Tearing the clothes is the sign of deep sorrow.

The verse invites the contrast: the son hears a message of judgment just as the father did, but “so hardened was the king” that he felt neither sorrow nor terror. It is stated flatly because it explains everything after it. What fails in the chapter is not the message or the messengers. It is whether the one who hears will be changed. Even the king's own officials, who had been afraid (verse 16), cannot move him; Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah “made intercession” and he “would not hear them” (verse 25).

25 Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them.

26 But the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the LORD hid them.

Verses 27–32

Written again, and the king answered

In plain words

After the king burned the scroll, the Lord told Jeremiah to take another and write on it all the words of the first. About Jehoiakim He said: “You burned this scroll and asked, ‘Why did you write that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land?’ Therefore none of his line will sit on David's throne, and his body will be thrown out to the heat by day and the frost by night. I will punish him, his children, and his servants for their wickedness, and I will bring on them and on Jerusalem all the disaster I threatened, because they would not listen.” So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch, who wrote on it everything on the burned scroll, and many similar words were added.

27 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying,

28 Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned.

29 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?

Latter-day Prophets #

Why hast thou written

The king's anger is at the content: he asks why the scroll says the king of Babylon will come.

The king's anger is at the content: he asks why the scroll says the king of Babylon will come. Burning is his answer to a message he disliked. A latter-day prophet's words about the response to a living prophet fit what verses 23–29 show: “How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness.”

The same teaching describes what the king does: “The honest in heart heed his words but the unrighteous either ignore the prophet or fight him. When the prophet points out the sins of the world, the worldly either want to close the mouth of the prophet, or else act as if the prophet didn't exist, rather than repent of their sins. Popularity is never a test of truth.” Jehoiakim does both: he acts as if the message did not exist (the fire) and he tries to close the mouth that spoke it (verse 26).

Sources: Chapter 11: Follow the Living Prophet, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson (2014). Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Old Testament Institute Teacher Manual (2026).

30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

Context #

None to sit on David's throne

The Lord's reply to the king is a judgment on him and his line: no one of his to sit on David's throne, and his body “cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.”

The Lord's reply to the king is a judgment on him and his line: no one of his to sit on David's throne, and his body “cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.” The second part repeats Jeremiah's earlier word that he would have “the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jer. 22:18–19).

How these were fulfilled is not spelled out. Kings says only that Jehoiakim “slept with his fathers” (2 Kgs. 24:6). An ass's burial “meant to be left unburied in the open field,” and the prophecy “probably was fulfilled when Jehoiakim was taken captive during Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem”; the hedge is the source's own. The word about the throne is clearer. His son Jehoiachin reigned only “three months” and then “went out to the king of Babylon” (2 Kgs. 24:8, 12), and the king of Babylon set up Mattaniah, renamed Zedekiah, “his father's brother”: Jehoiakim's brother, not his son (2 Kgs. 24:17). In that sense the prophecy that no descendant of Jehoiakim would hold the throne came to pass.

Sources: “Jehoiakim”, Bible Dictionary. Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeremiah 36: Baruch the Scribe, Old Testament Seminary Student Study Guide (2002), 164.

31 And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.

Related Scriptures #

The word that is not destroyed

The burning does not stop the evil the Lord has pronounced; it stands, and the chapter ends by saying it will come: “but they hearkened not.”

The burning does not stop the evil the Lord has pronounced; it stands, and the chapter ends by saying it will come: “but they hearkened not.” “All of Jeremiah's prophecies regarding Jehoiakim and the destruction of Jerusalem were later fulfilled,” and the lesson is that “the Lord's words will be fulfilled, regardless of whether we believe in them.”

The Doctrine and Covenants says the same in the Lord's voice: “though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (D&C 1:38). Jehoiakim's fire was aimed at Jeremiah's words; the Lord treats them as His own. Within a few years the first part came true: Jehoiakim served Nebuchadnezzar and then rebelled, and the Lord sent bands against Judah “according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets” (2 Kgs. 24:1–2).

Sources: Unit 28: Day 1, Jeremiah 34–41, Old Testament Study Guide for Home-Study Seminary Students (2015). Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Old Testament Institute Teacher Manual (2026). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

32 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.

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 36

The Lord whose word comes to Jeremiah in this chapter is Jehovah, who is the premortal Jesus Christ. That makes the scroll's fate a matter of His own words. In the Gospels Jesus says the same thing of Himself: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35), and in the Doctrine and Covenants He says it in the same voice that spoke to Jeremiah (D&C 1:38). The chapter also shows Him as the God who wants His people to turn: the whole scroll exists “that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin” (Jer. 36:3). Where the king takes the knife, the Lord takes a second scroll.

Worth exploring next

Jeremiah 45: Baruch’s own lament and the Lord’s answer, “seek them not,” dated to this same year.
Jeremiah 26:20–24: the prophet Urijah, whom the same king killed, and Ahikam son of Shaphan, who protected Jeremiah.
2 Kings 22:8–20: Shaphan and Josiah, who tore his clothes when the book of the law was read.
1 Nephi 5:13: the brass plates held “many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.”

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Enrichment G: Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Unit 28: Day 1, Jeremiah 34–41, Old Testament Study Guide for Home-Study Seminary Students (2015).
Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Old Testament Institute Teacher Manual (2026).
Jeremiah 36: Baruch the Scribe, Old Testament Seminary Student Study Guide (2002), 164.
“Scroll”, Bible Dictionary.
“Roll”, Bible Dictionary.
“Baruch”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehoiakim”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Chapter 11: Follow the Living Prophet, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson (2014).

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