What did King Jehoiakim do when Jehudi read the scroll to him?

The story reaches a climax as the officials go to the court of the king to report the scroll to him. They leave the scroll in Elishama’s chamber, probably out of concern for its safety, or possibly to give the king a slightly toned-down summary of its message¹. Having heard the report, the king sends Jehudi to fetch the scroll. Jehudi then reads the scroll to the king. This is now the third reading of the scroll in this narrative and the scene is set for what unfolds. As the king listens to the scroll being read he is sitting in the winter house and there is a fire burning in the pot in front of him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. The king never speaks in the narrative, but his actions speak loudly. Burning the entire scroll, bit by bit, as it is read to him, is a very deliberate and brazen defiance of the Lord’s word. It is even possible that the king believes that he can destroy the power of the Lord’s word, and neutralize the threat of judgment it proclaimed, by burning it². He was not just rejecting the scroll’s message, but he was rejecting the Lord as his covenant God and was trying to show that he ruled as an autonomous king³.

Many commentators see a very telling and even deliberate contrast between this narrative and the account in 2 Kings 22:8–20 in how King Josiah responded to the discovery of the scroll in the temple about seventeen years earlier⁴. On hearing the Lord’s word being read, King Josiah wept and tore his clothes in repentance. He also went on to bring about reform in the land in an attempt to call the people back to covenant faithfulness (2 Kings 23:1–37). Sadly, his attempts failed, but his response to the Lord’s word is in stark contrast to Jehoiakim’s response to Jeremiah’s scroll. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words were afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Such is the defiance of Jehoiakim and those around him, that the threat of judgment leaves them unmoved and there is absolutely no hint of repentance. “The king and his servants are portrayed as unafraid and unremorseful. Such a description serves to seal the doom of the nation and her leaders. When Judah's leaders have no more regard than this for the word from the LORD, there can be only one outcome”⁵. Even when Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah, some of his own officials, urge the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.

Jehoiakim is not satisfied with burning the scroll. He commands that Baruch and Jeremiah be seized. He wants to get rid of the messenger as well, but the Lord hid them. Even though it was the officials who advised Baruch and Jeremiah to go into hiding (Jeremiah 36:19), it is the Lord who is in control and who protects his prophet from the king.