The Unburnable Word
Introduction: The King's Penknife
We live in an age of cosmic tantrums. Modern man, like a spoiled child in the divine playroom, has decided he does not like the rules. He does not like the story God is telling. And so, with all the fury his small heart can muster, he attempts to edit the Author. He takes his penknife to the text. He tries to cut out the inconvenient parts, the verses that offend his sensibilities, the laws that restrict his appetites, and the judgments that terrify his conscience. He calls this deconstruction. He calls it progress. He calls it enlightenment. God calls it Tuesday.
The story of King Jehoiakim is not some dusty artifact from ancient Judah. It is the story of our time. It is the story of every man who thinks he can make reality conform to his wishes simply by refusing to read the parts he dislikes. Whether it is the university professor who dismisses the resurrection as myth, the politician who redefines marriage, or the ordinary sinner who simply ignores the Ten Commandments, the spirit is the same. It is the spirit of Jehoiakim, sitting by his winter fire, arrogantly assuming that his penknife and his fire pot can have the last word with the Almighty.
But what we see in this passage is God's calm, sovereign, and almost amused response to such defiance. Man in his rebellion thinks he is landing a mighty blow against the heavens. He thinks that by burning the scroll, he can prevent the judgment. He thinks that by silencing the prophet, he can avert the prophecy. What he fails to understand is that the Word of God is not contained on paper. It is not bound by ink. The Word of God is the very fabric of the reality he is sitting in. Trying to destroy the Word of God by burning a scroll is like trying to abolish the law of gravity by burning a physics textbook. You do not abolish the law. You simply demonstrate it in a most unfortunate and terminal way.
This passage teaches us a fundamental truth about the nature of God's Word and the nature of rebellion. It shows us that defiance does not diminish the Word; it amplifies it. It shows us that God's purposes cannot be thwarted by the petty vandalism of kings. And it shows us that for every penknife man raises against God, God has a fresh scroll and an even sharper word of judgment.
The Text
Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words which Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying, "Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned. And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, 'Thus says Yahweh, "You have burned this scroll, saying, 'Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and make this land a ruin and will make man and beast to cease from it?' " Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, "He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. And I will also punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity, and I will bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the evil that I have spoken about to them, but they did not listen." ' "
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the son of Neriah, the scribe, and he wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.
(Jeremiah 36:27-32 LSB)
God's Word is Inevitable (v. 27-28)
We begin with God's response to the king's book burning.
"Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll... saying, 'Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned.'" (Jeremiah 36:27-28)
Notice the timing. The word comes "after" the king's defiant act. Jehoiakim has had his moment. The scroll is ashes. The smoke has cleared. In the king's mind, the matter is settled. He has silenced the voice of doom. He has asserted his authority. But it is precisely at this moment of imagined victory that God speaks again. God is never rushed, and He is never flustered. The king's tantrum did not interrupt the divine counsel; it was accounted for within it.
The command is simple and devastating in its calmness: "Do it again." God does not wring His hands. He does not lament the lost manuscript. He simply commissions a second edition. This demonstrates a core attribute of the divine Word: it is indestructible because its source is the mind of God. The king destroyed a physical copy, a transcript. He could not touch the original. The Word of God is not the paper it is written on; it is the eternal, living, active speech of the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. You can burn Bibles, but you cannot burn the truth. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God's words will by no means pass away.
This is the doctrine of preservation in action. God is zealous for His Word. He will not allow the impudence of a tinpot dictator in Jerusalem to have the final say. The command to "write on it all the former words" shows that the message has not changed. The king's rejection did not require God to rethink His position or soften His rhetoric. The truth remains the truth, whether it is received in humility or thrown into the fire.
The King's Folly and God's Sentence (v. 29-31)
God then turns His attention directly to the book-burner himself, pronouncing a judgment that is perfectly tailored to the crime.
"And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, 'Thus says Yahweh, "You have burned this scroll, saying, 'Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and make this land a ruin...?'" Therefore... He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.'" (Jeremiah 36:29-30)
God begins by quoting the king's own complaint. Jehoiakim's objection was not to the style or the grammar; it was to the content. He did not want to hear about the king of Babylon. He did not want to face the consequences of his sin. He wanted a reality where his actions had no negative repercussions. This is the heart of all rebellion. We want a universe that caters to our desires, not one that operates according to God's decrees. The king's question, "Why have you written on it," is the cry of every sinner who wants God to be other than who He is.
The judgment is a masterpiece of divine irony. First, the king who tried to cut God's Word out of history will have his own line cut off from history. "He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David." This was a dynastic curse of the highest order. He tried to end the prophecy, so God ended his legacy. Second, the king who sat by his cozy fire for warmth while disrespecting God will have his own corpse thrown out into the elements, exposed to the scorching heat of the day and the bitter frost of the night. He sought comfort through rebellion; he would find ultimate discomfort in judgment. There would be no royal funeral, no honored burial. His end would be one of utter disgrace, a public testimony to the folly of fighting with God.
This judgment extends to his entire administration. "I will also punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity." A wicked leader does not sin in a vacuum. His corruption infects the whole system. The reason for this sweeping judgment is given at the end of verse 31: "but they did not listen." The book burning was not an isolated incident; it was the culmination of a settled policy of deafness toward God. They refused to hear, so God brought upon them everything they refused to hear about.
The Expanded Edition (v. 32)
The final verse of this account is the triumphant capstone, revealing the ultimate outcome of man's war on the Word.
"Then Jeremiah took another scroll... and he wrote on it... all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them." (Jeremiah 36:32)
This is the great punchline of the story. This is God's checkmate. Jehoiakim, in his arrogance, thought he could subtract from God's Word. The result was not subtraction, but addition. God did not just restore what was lost; He expanded it. The second scroll contained everything that was in the first, plus more. "Many similar words were added to them."
What were these "similar words"? The text doesn't say, but we can make a sanctified guess. They were likely more detailed prophecies of the very judgment Jehoiakim had just incurred. His act of burning the scroll became, in itself, a new reason for judgment, which then had to be written down in the new scroll. His rebellion did not censor the book; it wrote him into it as a notorious villain and an object lesson for all time.
This is a permanent principle. Every attempt to suppress the Word of God results in its advancement. The Pharisees tried to silence the apostles, and the result was that the gospel exploded out of Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The Roman emperors tried to stamp out the church with persecution, and the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church. The modern secularist tries to mock the Bible into irrelevance, and in doing so, he simply proves its prophecies about the scoffing of the last days. You cannot win a war against the Word. The Word always gets the last word. And often, it is an expanded word of judgment on those who tried to silence it.
The Word Made Flesh, Torn and Risen
This entire drama is a shadow, a type, of a far greater confrontation. King Jehoiakim is a pale imitation of all the wicked kings of the earth who set themselves against the Lord and His Anointed. The scroll, containing the words of God, points us to the ultimate Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
Just as Jehoiakim took the scroll, the rulers of this world took the living Word. Just as the king cut the scroll with a knife, they pierced His hands and His feet and His side. Just as the scroll was consumed in the fire of the king's hearth, the Lord Jesus was consumed in the fire of God's wrath on the cross, bearing our judgment. The world, in its wicked fury, did its worst. They killed the Prince of Life. They burned the scroll. They sealed the tomb and thought the matter was finished.
But God's response was the same. "Take again another scroll." On the third day, the Word came back. He was not merely restored; He was glorified. He was not just a second edition; He was the resurrected Lord of glory. And "many similar words were added." The story of His life and teaching was now crowned with the glorious news of His victory over death. The message of the Old Testament prophets was now fulfilled and expanded into the glorious gospel of the apostles.
The defiance of man at the cross did not diminish the Word; it accomplished the very plan of salvation that the Word had declared from the beginning. God used the greatest act of rebellion in human history to bring about the greatest act of redemption.
Therefore, our choice is the same one that faced the court of Jehoiakim. When the Word of God is read in our hearing, when it confronts our sin and calls us to repent, we have two options. We can reach for the penknife, cut out the parts we do not like, and throw it in the fire of our defiance. Or we can do what the king's officials urged him to do: we can tear our garments, not the scroll. We can bow in humility, receive the Word, and trust in the Savior of whom it speaks. The Word is unburnable. The only question is whether we will be consumed by the fire of its judgment or saved by the fire of its grace.