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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 36:20 - 36:20
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The reading of the book before the king. - Jer 36:20. The princes betook themselves to the king חָצֵרָה, into the inner fore-court (leaving the book-roll in the chamber of the secretary of state), and gave him an account of the matter. חָצֵר is the inner court of the palace, in which the royal dwelling-apartments are situated. הִפְקִיד, to entrust a thing or person to any one (Jer 40:7), hence to deposit, preserve, Isa 10:28.
Jer 36:21-22
Thereupon the king makes Jehudi fetch the book, and causes it to be read before himself and the assembled princes. עָמַד מֵעַל, to stand over, since the one who is standing before his master, while the latter is sitting, overtops him; cf. Gen 18:8. The king was sitting, as is stated in Jer 36:22 by way of preparation for what follows, in the winter-house, i.e., in that portion of the palace which was erected for a winter residence, in the ninth month, i.e., during the winter, and the pot of coals was burning before him. The rooms of eastern houses have no stoves, but in the middle of the floor there is a depression, in which is placed a sort of basin with burning coals, for the purpose of heating the apartment: cf. Keil's Bibl. Archäol. ii. §95, S. 7. For the expression וְאֶת־הָאָח, "and as for the fire-pot, it was burning before him," cf. Ewald, §277, d.
Jer 36:23
Now, "when Jehudi had read three or four columns, he the king cut it the book-roll with a pen-knife and threw the pieces into the fire, in the pot of coals, till the whole roll was consumed on the fire in the pot of coals." דְּלָתֹות, properly "doors," are not leaves, but divisions of a book. The opinion of Hitzig, that leaves are to be understood, and that the Megillah, therefore, was not a roll, properly speaking, but a book with leaves, cannot be substantiated. In the synagogues, the Jews even at the present day, according to the ancient custom, use real rolls, which are rolled up on a stick. On these the Scripture text is written, though not in lines which occupy the whole breadth of the roll; the whole space is divided into parts. "Scribebatur," says Buxtorf in Institutione epistolari Hebr. p. 4, "volumen lineis, non per longitudinem totius chartae aut pergamenti deductis, sed in plures areas divisis, quomodo sunt latera paginarum in libris complicatis. Istae propterea voce metaphoricâ vocanturדְּלָתֹותjanuae valvae, quod figuram januae referent." The subject of יִקְרָעֶהָ is not Jehudi, as Hitzig thinks, but the king, and the word does not signify "he cut it out," but "he cut it in pieces" (the suffix refers to הַמְּגִלָּה). We are not, with many expositors, to view the conduct of the king in such a way as to think that, whenever Jehudi had read some portions, he cut these off and threw them into the fire, so that the book was, with these interruptions, read through to the end, and at the same time gradually destroyed. Such conduct Graf justly characterizes as trifling and silly, and not in harmony with the anger of a king having a violent disposition. But we cannot see how the imperfect יקרע (in Nägelsbach's opinion) proves that Jehudi read the whole, when the text states that only three or four columns were read. The meaning, peculiar to the imperfect, of the continuation or repetition of an act, is fully made out by supposing that the king cut down the roll bit by bit, and threw the pieces into the fire one after the other. Neither does the expression עַד־תֹּם כָּל־הַמְּגִלָּה imply that the whole book was read; for תָּמַם does not denote the completion of the reading, but the completion of the burning: hence the words are to be translated, "till the whole roll had completely got upon the fire," i.e., was completely burnt; cf. תַּם אֶל־, Gen 47:18. The inf. absol. וְהַשְׁלֵךְ is a continuation of the finite verb, as frequently occurs, e.g., in Jer 14:5; Jer 32:44.
Jer 36:24-25
In order to characterize the conduct of the king, the writer remarks, "Yet the king and his servants who heard all these words (which Jehudi had read) were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments (in token of deep sorrow); and even when Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah addressed the king, requesting him not to burn the roll, he did not listen to them." So hardened was the king, that he and his servants neither were terrified by the threatenings of the prophet, nor felt deep sorrow, as Josiah did in a similar case (2Ki 22:11, cf. 1Ki 21:27), nor did they listen to the earnest representations of the princes. עֲבָדָיו are the court-attendants of the king in contrast with the princes, who, according to Jer 36:16, had been alarmed by what they heard read, and wished, by entreaties, to keep the king from the commission of such a wicked act as the destruction of the book. Ewald, on the contrary, has identified עֲבָדָיו with the princes, and thereby marred the whole account, while he reproaches the princes with "acting as the wretched instruments of what they knew to be the sentiments prevailing at court."
Jer 36:26
Not content with destroying the book, Jehoiakim also wished to get Baruch and Jeremiah out of the way; for he ordered the king's son Jerahmeël and two other men to go for Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; "but the Lord hid them," i.e., graciously kept them out of the sight of the spies. בֶּן־הַמֶּלֶךְ is not the son of Jehoiakim, - if so, we would find simply אֶת־בְּנֹו; but a royal prince is meant, cf. Jer 38:6; 1Ki 22:26; 2Ki 11:1-2; Zep 1:8.