Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Baruch executes his commission. Jer 36:9-19 The reading of the book in the temple. - Jer 36:9. In the fifth year of Jehoiakim, in the ninth month, "they proclaimed a fast before the Lord - all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who had come out of the cities of the Judah to Jerusalem." קתא צום, to call, declare, appoint a fast; cf. Kg1 21:9, Kg1 21:12; Ch2 20:3. From the tenor of the words, the people who lived in Jerusalem and those who had come thither out of the country might seem to have called the fast. But this is impossible; for the people from the cities of Judah evidently came to Jerusalem only in consequence of the fast being appointed. Hence Graf is of opinion that קתא צום seems here used in a general way of the keeping of such a fast. This view is not confirmed by any parallel instances. The expression is inexact, and the inexactness has arisen from the effort to attain greater conciseness of expression. The meaning is this: a fast was proclaimed, and all the people in Jerusalem and out of the cities of Judah came to worship the Lord in the temple. It remains doubtful with whom the appointment originated, - whether with the king, or with the high priest and the priesthood. The ninth month corresponds to our December, and consequently came round with the cold season; cf. Jer 36:22. The fast-day was a special one; for in the law only the day of atonement, in the seventh month, was prescribed as a fast-day. On the object of this measure, see supra, p. 316f. Jer 36:10 On this day Baruch read the addresses of Jeremiah out of the book to the people who had come to the temple, in the "chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe, in the upper forecourt, at the entrance of the new gate of the house of the Lord." Gemariah the son of Shaphan was one of the king's private scribes, a secretary of state. For, according to Jer 36:12, he belonged to the princes, and was probably a brother of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, who had already shown himself, before this, a protector of the prophet (Jer 26:24). The chamber which he had in the temple was situated in the upper forecourt, at the entrance of the new gate, whose position we cannot exactly determine (see on Jer 26:10), but which led from the outer to the inner court of the priests, which rose higher than the others. Jer 36:11-13 Micaiah, a son of Gemariah, was also listening to the reading; and he it was who brought the news into the palace. He made of the room, i.e., the office, of Elishama, the secretary of state, where the princes, viz., Elishama, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor (cf. Jer 26:22), Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, had just met for a consultation; and he mentioned to them what he had heard. Jer 36:14 On this information the princes sent Jehudi (perhaps one of the under-officers of the secretary of state) to Baruch, to bring him, with the book from which he had read. From the designation, "Jehudi son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi," Hitzig and Graf conclude that the first and last are not proper names, but appellatives, "the Jew" and "the Cushite," and account for the use of them on the ground that, through the application of the law given in Deu 23:7-8 to Cushites as well as Egyptians, the ancestor was a Cushite, and only his great-grandson became a Jew, or Jewish citizen, and was called "Jehudi." But this view is opposed (1) by the fact that the names of the father and the grandfather are true proper names, and these, moreover, contain the name Jah (Jahveh), - hence are genuine proper names of Israelites; moreover, (2) even in olden times Jehudith occurs as a woman's name, Gen 26:34. According to this, Jehudi is a true proper name, and at the most, Cushi is but a surname of the great-grandfather, given him because of his descent from the Cushites. Further, the law, Deu 23:7, applies only to the posterity of the Edomites and Egyptians, that these should not be received into the congregation of the Lord till the third generation; this ordinance was based on grounds which did not permit of its application to other nations. These might be naturalized even in the first generation on undergoing circumcision, with the exception of Canaanites, Ammonites, and Moabites, who were not to be admitted into the Israelitish community even in the tenth generation, Deu 23:3. Jer 36:15-16 When Baruch came, the princes, in token of friendly and respectful treatment, bade him sit down and read to them out of the book he had brought with him. Jer 36:16. But when they heard all the words read, "they were afraid one at another;" i.e., by looks, gestures, and words, they gave mutual expression of their fear, partly because of the contents of what had been read. Although they were generally acquainted with the sense and the spirit of Jeremiah's addresses, yet what had now been read made a powerful impression on them; for Baruch plainly had read, both to the people in the temple and to the princes, not the whole book, but only the main portions, containing the sternest denunciations of sin and the strongest threats of punishment. The statement, "he read in (out of) the book the words of Jeremiah" (Jer 36:10), does not mean that he read the whole book; this would only have wearied the people and weakened the impression made. But they were partly also terrified, perhaps, by the boldness of a declaration which so decidedly opposed the desires and hopes of the king; for the thought of the event mentioned in Jer 26:20. would at once suggest to them the danger that might arise to the live of Jeremiah and Baruch from the despotic character of the king. They said therefore to Baruch, "We must tell the king all these things." For it was clear that the matter could not long remain concealed from the king, after the public reading in the temple. Hence they dared not, agreeably to their official relation to the king, hide from him what had taken place. Jer 36:17-18 Meanwhile, in order to inform themselves more exactly regarding what had happened, they ask Baruch, "Tell us, how hast thou written all these words at his mouth?" Thereupon Baruch replied, "He used to call aloud these words to me," i.e., he used to dictate them to me by word of mouth, "and I wrote them in the book with ink." The imperfect expresses the repeated or continued doing of anything; hence יקרא here means to dictate, which requires considerable time. In the following circumstantial clause is found the participle ואני כתב, while I was writing; and so I myself was doing nothing else all the time than writing down what was dictated. Some commentators have found a stumbling-block in מפּיו in the question of the princes (Jer 36:17); the lxx and Ewald omit this word, inasmuch as Baruch does not explain till afterwards that he had written down the words from the mouth of Jeremiah. Others, like Venema, take מפּיו as a question = המפּיו. Both explanations are arbitrary and unnecessary. The princes knew quite well that the substance of the book was from the mouth of Jeremiah, i.e., contained his addresses; but Baruch, too, might have composed the book from the oral discourses of the prophet without being commissioned by him, without his knowledge also, and against his will. Accordingly, to attain certainty as to the share of the prophet in this matter, they ask him, and Baruch answers that Jeremiah had dictated it to him. Jer 36:19 Thereupon the princes advised Baruch to hide himself and Jeremiah; for they know beforehand that Jehoiakim would put to death the witnesses of the truth.