And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith Jehovah 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 it man and beast?
Jehoiakim had just sliced up Jeremiah's scroll and burned it. Now God sends the prophet back with a message for the king himself. God quotes the king's own objection back to him. His quarrel was never with the writing, but with the judgment written in it.
His protest was aimed at what the scroll announced. Babylon's king would come and empty the land of man and beast. He did not argue the point. He destroyed the page.
The poor king showed his complete unbelief. His way of getting rid of the judgment was by destroying the scroll. "When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife and threw it into the fire on the hearth, until the whole scroll was burned up" (verse 23). This was an act of daring irreverence before God; futile and complete folly, but no less sin.
God had left the king a way out. Burning the scroll did more than ignore a warning. It threw away an offer of mercy.
Neither king Jehoiakim, nor anyone like him who has cut up the Scriptures or burned them, has ever truly known the God who gave them by inspiration. Nor have they known that the word of God is a living word that cannot be destroyed. So the Lord told His servant Jeremiah to "Take another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned." There was also a special word for the king. It told him of the judgment about to fall on him, on his children, and on his land. The king of Babylon would certainly come and carry out the judgment written in the scroll. God had given him the chance to repent. He not only refused it; he treated the mercy of the God of Israel with contempt.
The fire destroyed nothing that mattered. It only fastened the judgment onto the man who lit it.
Man cannot get rid of the Word of God. He knows how to preserve it, just as He did in this case. But the way a man treats it shows his guilt and irreverence. It brings on him the very judgments that God's word speaks of — as we read of the Scripture-cutting king in our chapter.
The rewritten scroll came back longer than the first. Fighting the message only hurries what the message announced.
The old scroll was written again with many similar words, and more were added, in the way God always works. Unbelief never stops the judgments of God; it brings them about. It may add to them, but it never lessens them.
The king had also denied a prophet an honourable grave. God repaid him in kind.
So the king who denied the prophet's body an honourable burial was himself "buried with the burial of a donkey." He cut up and burned God's book. In turn his own body was torn and burned, left unburied in the scorching sun.
What happened to that scroll has happened to the Bible many times since.
But did the king destroy the Word of God? One might just as well speak of destroying God Himself. The efforts of men inspired by the enemy of God's truth can never touch God or His Word. The Word of God endures forever. It is, like God, eternal. How often men have burned the Bibles — a thousand times over! … Emperors and popes, philosophers and unbelievers who attacked the Bible are gone; the Bible is still with us.
The king never saw the irony coming.
The foolish and irreverent king might cut the scroll, but he could not set aside the divine judgments that were written on it. Little did he think that the very words of the scroll, and his wicked action, would be read by millions of people throughout the world thousands of years after he was dead.
One writer applies this to our own day.
What passes for criticism is only the mind of man pushing into the holy things of God, and daring to reject as God's word what He has given for the instruction and blessing of His people.
- The complaint — Jehoiakim's issue was the content: Babylon coming, the land stripped bare. He answered a message he could not refute by burning it.
- The mercy — the scroll offered the king a way back. Burning it threw away mercy, not just a warning.
- The futility — cutting the page did not cut the sentence. How a man treats God's word proves his guilt and hurries the judgment.
- The reckoning — he burned God's book and denied a prophet a grave. He got a donkey's burial and an unburied body.
- The survival — God had the scroll written again, with more added. The king is dust. Destroying God's Word is as possible as destroying God.
Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning 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.
Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had just cut up the scroll of Jeremiah's words and burned it, piece by piece. This verse is God's reply — a sentence on the king himself, touching his throne, his family line, and his dead body.
But Jehoiakim did have a son, Jehoiachin, who took the throne after him. So how was this word true? One writer answers it from the force of the word and from the family tree:
Jeremiah said of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin's father, "He shall have none to sit on the throne of David" (Jer. 36:30). The word "sit" here means to "firmly sit," or "dwell." Jehoiachin's short three-month reign was certainly not that. And Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's successor, was Jehoiakim's brother, not his son.
Another writer asks the same question, and answers from what became of the son:
But did Jehoiakim not have a son? A wretched one he was — Jehoiachin, who inherited his father's guilt and misery. How could he be said to sit on the throne of David? He reigned in Jerusalem only three months before the lion came up from his thicket. The destroyer of the nations was on his way. He was God's avenger against a king who did evil in the LORD's sight, just as his father had done.
The second half of the sentence strips him of a grave. Earlier God had said he would be buried "with the burial of a donkey" (Jeremiah 22:19). One writer links that to what Jehoiakim did to the scroll:
It means that a donkey has no burial, and so Jehoiakim would have no burial. He is the only king of Judah whose burial is not recorded. Jeremiah may have added these words at God's command, after this king had cut the scroll to pieces and burned it in the fire. Most likely this uniquely shameful end was announced because he had done that wicked work: he cut the Word of God to pieces and threw it into the fire.
Jehoiakim had once refused a dead prophet an honourable burial. What he did came back on him:
So the king denied the prophet's body an honourable burial. In turn he himself was "buried with the burial of a donkey." He mutilated and burned God's book, and his own body was torn and left unburied, burned in the scorching sun.
The sentence reached beyond the king himself. And it came only after he had refused mercy:
There was a special word for the king. It told him of the judgment about to fall on his person, on his descendants, and on his land. The king of Babylon would certainly come and carry out the judgment written in the scroll. God had given him the chance to repent. He did not just refuse it — he poured contempt on the mercy of the God of Israel.
The king tried to cancel the threat by burning the page that carried it. Two writers say what he achieved:
Unbelief never hinders the judgments of God. It carries them out. It may add to them, but it never lessens them.
God's judgments are not set aside by burning rolls of parchment.
The scroll did not stay burned. The first one was ash. The new one held everything the fire had taken, and more besides:
Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe. Baruch wrote on it every word of the book that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire, "and many similar words were added to them" (v. 32). This is God's answer: none of His words shall perish. They increase and prosper in the thing for which they are sent.
One writer names what drives such treatment of the Bible:
It is not faith that does such damage to the messages of the Most High. It is the reckless unbelief of that godless king of Judah. He first cut the prophet's scroll to pieces, then went on to burn it with fire. So when we see men take scissors to the Scriptures, we may well fear that the fire will follow next.
- Mercy first. God gave the king a chance to repent. He refused it, and only then did this sentence fall.
- Throne. "None to sit" means none to sit firmly. His son held the throne three months, and the next king was Jehoiakim's brother, not his son.
- Grave. He is the only king of Judah with no recorded burial. He denied a dead prophet an honourable grave, and got none himself.
- Fire. Burning the page changed nothing. Unbelief never reduces God's judgments; here it enlarged them.
- Word. Jeremiah wrote the scroll again, with more added — what men cut and burn, God restores and increases.