1. Going in chronological order, Jeremiah 36 clearly dates like Jeremiah 25 to the year 605BC during the reign of Jehoiakim (36:1). [1] Jeremiah takes a scroll of all his prophecies since the days of King Josiah to the king (36:2) -- with Jeremiah's first prophecies starting in 627BC. One can wonder if these prophecies were largely Jeremiah 1-20, with the possible inclusion of Jeremiah 25 as well.
Yahweh sounds hopeful that the house of Judah might turn from its evil ways (36:3). This statement is probably a reminder that the concept of God knowing all the future was probably not yet entirely solidified. If God knows the future -- indeed, if God has deep insight into human behavior -- he would know the overwhelmingly likely response. And he did know.
We seem to have two or three choices. The open theist and panentheist says that the future doesn't exist and so is unknowable or that God chooses not to know the future so we have free will. They take the text too literally at this point.
The orthodox option believes that God knows exactly what Jehoiakim will do because God is truly and really all-knowing and omniscient. God is walking through history with Jeremiah who does not see the future in its entirety. God is reading from a script that he has known for eternity past. He is doing it for Jeremiah's and the later audience of Jeremiah's sake.
Even in revelation, God meets us where we are. Something along these lines is the historic, orthodox perspective that preserves God as God and not God as some really nice, sooped-up Zeus.
But Jeremiah may not entirely understand this fully yet. The Bible displays a flow of revelation. The earlier parts have a true understanding, but their understanding sometimes is not as precise as later parts, particularly the New Testament. Psalm 139 is generally considered a focal point on this subject, where God is said to know every one of the psalmist's days before he was born (139:16). [2] Going off that comment, God would know the day Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah's scroll.
This can be a scary line of thought, but it is a clear conclusion if one believes that God is all-knowing. If you and I could guess what Jehoiakim would do, then Yahweh certainly would have predicted it -- even if he didn't know the future. If taken with strict literalism, the passage seems to limit God's knowledge inadvertently. For God to be God, we have to take this text as God walking through the situation with Jeremiah even though he knows what will happen. [3]
2. Going in chronological order, this is the first time we encounter Baruch, although he is mentioned in Jeremiah 32:12 as a witness to Jeremiah's land purchase. Baruch is the scribe who writes down Jeremiah's oral prophecies. We can wonder if he was primarily responsible for the initial collection of Jeremiah's prophetic ministry onto scrolls.
Remembering Jeremiah 25, the priest in charge of the temple had beaten Jeremiah. He is not allowed in the temple now (36:3). So, Jeremiah sends Baruch with the scroll instead. Baruch is to read the entire scroll to the people of Judah on a "fast day." It is unclear whether this is a regularly scheduled fast day or whether the religious establishment and king have called a special fast. Probably the latter.
Jeremiah still has hope that they will return to Yahweh (36:7).
3. So Baruch reads the scroll at the entry of the New Gate to the temple. The son of a temple official named Gemariah then goes to king's house and tells officials there about it. It is commanded that Baruch come to them with the scroll to them. Baruch reads it to them at their request, and they seem open to hear it. They clearly consider Jeremiah to be a legitimate prophet.
They question Baruch. Is this truly a dictation from Jeremiah. Yes. Then they sent Baruch away and told him and Jeremiah to go into hiding. They apparently know how the king will respond.
Finally, the king is informed. It is the ninth month (November-December), and a fire is going. The king is not alarmed. None of his servants rent their clothes. Instead, the king has the scroll burned. I think it's hard for us to appreciate how shocking an action this was. Prophets were untouchable.
Instead, the king orders the arrest of Jeremiah and Baruch, as they had anticipated. So, Jeremiah simply dictates the scroll again, even adding to it. He predicts disaster and that there will soon be no one to sit on the throne of David. Jehoiakim's body will be cast out into the street. [4]
[1] Jeremiah 36 in the Masoretic text (MT) is chapter 43 in the Greek Old Testament (LXX).
[2] The headings of the psalms were added after the psalms were written, presumably as the psalms were collected. The headings are traditional but not usually considered inspired. For that reason, this psalm is anonymous even though it came to have David's name on it. It seems rather later than David in its theology.
[3] Nowhere is this dynamic of biblical revelation clearer than in Moses exchange with God in Numbers 14, where God tells Moses he is going to destroy Israel but Moses talks him down. This is a clear case of anthropomorphism where God is portrayed like a furious man wanting to beat up someone. Some Christians may like these passages a little too much and miss the fact that, in them, God was meeting us in human terms to help our understanding. God was painting a picture for us. He was "stooping to our weakness."
An all-knowing God doesn't literally get angry because he has always known what was going to happen. God's "anger" is for the benefit of our understanding.
[4] The final fate of Jehoiakim is unclear. 2 Kings 24:6 simply says he slept with his fathers. However, since the prophecies of Jeremiah were collected after the event, it's hard to imagine that this is not how Jehoiakim ended up. Jeremiah 22:18-19 has a similar prediction. Josephus gives a tradition of its fulfillment at the command of Nebuchadnezzar (Antiquities 10.96-97).
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Introduction to JeremiahJeremiah 1 (Josiah, 628BC)
Jeremiah 2
Jeremiah 3
Jeremiah 4
Jeremiah 5
Jeremiah 6
Jeremiah 7
Jeremiah 8
Jeremiah 9
Jeremiah 10
Jeremiah 11 (Jehoiakim, 609BC)
Jeremiah 12
Jeremiah 13-18
19. Jeremiah 19-20
20. Jump to Jeremiah 25 (605BC, Jeremiah 32 LXX)