Jeremiah 36:25
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. 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.
It was winter, in the ninth month, in the king's winter house, where the king and the princes of Judah sat around an open fire on the hearth while Jehudi read Jeremiah's roll aloud. After only a small portion of reproof and warning had been read, about three or four pages, the king, far from trembling at the danger hanging over himself and his people, in a frenzy of rage seized the roll, cut it leaf by leaf with a penknife, and cast it into the fire until all was consumed. Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah, certain of the princes of Judah, pleaded with King Jehoiakim not to burn the roll, but he would not listen to them. Their intercession did not prevent him from rejecting and burning God's message.
Neither the king nor his princes and servants who heard the words were afraid or tore their garments or showed fear or grief. The intercession to spare the scroll was the only respect shown to God's message as it exposed the people's condition. The princes had earlier listened to Baruch with great interest, promised to inform the king of all they heard, and counseled Baruch to hide himself because they feared the king would reject the testimony and seek to slay those who had prepared and delivered it. After the writing was destroyed the king's wrath rose against Jeremiah and Baruch and he ordered them seized, but the Lord hid them.
The act means the king willfully destroyed God's written warning, a special message from God and straight reproof exposing the people's condition. The incident illustrates Israel's rejection of the Lord's reproofs, including the binding claims of His law and required obedience to His commandments. Burning the roll did not destroy the message, for the Word of God will never return void. But the same Holy Spirit who gave the first testimony that was refused and burned came to the servant of God who caused the first to be written, repeated the very message that had been rejected, caused it to be written again, and added a great deal more to it.
When God sends a straight, plain corrective message designed to change principles and turn the heart to repentance, and men refuse to be corrected and seek to consume it to get it out of sight, that is not the end of the message but only gives it increased publicity and confirmation. The whole transaction is recorded, and those who take part in refusing correction pronounce their own sentence against themselves. To pursue a course that makes such a message of no effect and destroys its influence leaves wickedness and deceit remaining in the one corrected. Those who through Satan's devising justify and sustain the transgressor in presumption and crooked, unjust, unrighteous action will suffer with him unless they humble themselves before God with repentance, for the high and holy One who inhabits eternity will be vindicated in His effort to bring men to see their crooked ways and turn and be converted, that their usefulness not be destroyed and their sins registered in heaven be blotted out.
The episode is an act God's people need to study because it warns that people in later times may act as the king did. Some in recent years have virtually repeated it by rejecting the messages of the Spirit of God. Those who hear the binding claims of the law while their characters stand in contrast to those requirements would do as Jehoiakim did if placed in his circumstances. It shows what men do when they pass the boundary line, trifling with the Lord, using time meant for repentance and reform for criticism and following human ideas, and exerting a terrible influence for evil, yet God's messages of warning are repeated just as the burned roll was rewritten.