Scripture Daily

Context No. 1659 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 36:15-19: in context

15They said to him, “Sit down now, and read it in our hearing.” So Baruch read it in their hearing. 16Now when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one toward another, and said to Baruch, “We will surely tell the king of all these words.” 17They asked Baruch, saying, “Tell us now, how did you write all these words at his mouth?” 18Then Baruch answered them, “He dictated all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.” 19Then the princes said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah go hide. Don’t let anyone know where you are.”

Baruch has read aloud the scroll of Jeremiah's words, and now the princes ask him to read it again in their hearing. When they have heard all the words, they turn to one another in fear, and say they must report all this to the king. They ask Baruch how the scroll came to be written, and he explains that Jeremiah dictated it and he wrote it down. Then, sensing the danger, the princes tell Baruch, go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are.

The response of these princes to God's word is worth noticing, especially against what comes next in the chapter, where the king will take the same scroll and burn it, unmoved. The princes, hearing the words read, turned to one another in fear. They did not scoff or shrug; the word landed on them with weight, and they trembled at it, recognizing it as something serious that could not be ignored, that the king must hear. Whatever their failings, they took God's word seriously enough to be afraid. There is a right instinct in that. God's word is not a thing to be received casually, weighed idly, and set aside; when it speaks of judgment and calls to repentance, the fitting response is to take it seriously, even to tremble. The king would soon show the opposite, cutting the scroll to pieces and burning it, treating God's word with contempt; and it did him no good, for the word stood and its warnings came true. The princes at least feared. It is worth asking which response is ours when God's word confronts us with something hard, a warning, a call to change, a truth we would rather not hear. Do we treat it lightly, as the king would, scoffing or shrugging it off; or do we take it seriously, letting it land with the weight it deserves, trembling at it as the princes did? The word of God is not made less true by our contempt, nor more manageable by our dismissal; it asks to be taken seriously, and the wise tremble at it.

When God's word confronts me with something hard, a warning or a call to change I would rather not hear, do I treat it lightly, scoffing or shrugging it off, or do I take it seriously and let it land with the weight it deserves, trembling at it as these princes did rather than despising it as the king soon would?

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