Unwanted Items--The Unwanted Scroll

Introduction: Before the printing press was invented, all correspondence had to be written and copied by hand. Even in Old Testament times, there were scribes who made copies of various things. Needless to say, it would be a tragedy if these handwritten works were ever lost.

It was even worse when someone destroyed part of the Word of God!

Text: Jeremiah 36:20-26, KJV: 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. 24 Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. 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.

The first verses of Jeremiah 36 record how the LORD told Jeremiah to take a “roll of a book” or scroll and write all the words the LORD wanted him to write. By this, the LORD expressed hope that Judah would “return from their evil way” and that He would forgive their sins.

Jeremiah did indeed speak or dictate all the words that the LORD had given him (verse 4). This must have been a very labor intensive effort,, writing maybe the first 30 or so chapters of Jeremiah by hand on a scroll! Eventually, though, the work was done and now it was time to speak the words written on the scroll.

Now things began to get interesting. Baruch read the words of the scroll in the Temple, the “house of the LORD” where all people could hear. We’ll never know how many people even stopped to simply hear what Baruch was saying or how many actually paid him attention, but we do read of some men who did.

Several of these men are listed in verses 11 through 19. To their credit, some of these men took the scroll away from Baruch and told him and Jeremiah to hide!

And it gets worse from there. The king, Jehoiakim, son of Josiah—Judah’s last good king—at least gave ear service to the words of the scroll but it’s clear he wanted nothing to do with the scroll itself or any of the words. As Jehudi, one of the king’s servants or staff, read the words on the scroll, the king took a “penknife (verse 23)” and cut the scroll into pieces!

Even worse, as he cut the scroll into pieces, the king had the cut-off portions into the fire. The word “hearth” may not mean the area near a fireplace, as in our day, but the New American Standard version renders “hearth” as “brazier (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/254.htm)”. At any rate, the king didn’t even want to preserve the message from God. He wanted the scroll burned up, for whatever reasons he could come up with.

What’s sad is that people have tried to destroy the Word of God by any means they could find. Bibles have been printed-and burned-for many years. The same is true of helpful Christian literature. It’s clear there are some who are determined to keep the Word away from anyone who wants it.

They forget, though, that even though the may destroy the written Word, nobody will ever get rid of God Himself!

Many have tried but there’s one thing in common—every one of them who tried to do so failed.

The king didn’t want to hear or even see the scroll which contained Jeremiah’s words and had that scroll destroyed. Don’t make his mistake—don’t destroy the Word, rather, read and heed it!

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)