How the Book of Jeremiah Came to Be: The Biblical Version of Events
With the Babylonians threatening to attack Jerusalem, God commanded Jeremiah to write down all the words that he had spoken to the prophet. According to the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah summoned his scribe Baruch and instructed him to begin writing the words. The biblical report (quoted below) on how this and a second draft of the text came into being is unique in the Bible.
The clay seal impression at right, which surfaced on the antiquities market and is now in a private London collection, belonged to that very Baruch, and the faint whorls of a fingerprint on the upper left edge of the seal impression may have been left by the scribe himself. (A second impression made from this same seal is in the Israel Museum. See “Fingerprint of Jeremiah’s Scribe,” BAR 22:02.) The Hebrew script dates to the late seventh century B.C.E, the time of Jeremiah. In this period, papyrus scrolls were commonly tied with string and then sealed with a lump of clay, called a bulla. A scribe would then press his seal into the clay, making the document official. The inscription on this bulla reads “Belonging to Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe.” Berekhyahu is a form of the name Baruch; Neriyahu is a form of Neriah. The longer versions incorporate the divine name Yahweh in the form –yahu. The shorter versions of the father’s and son’s names appear in the biblical passage quoted below, which is based on what author Steve Delamarter identifies as the Second Edition of Jeremiah.
In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
Take a scroll and write upon it all the words that I have spoken to you—against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today. It may be that when the House of Judah hears of all the disasters that I intend to do to them, all of them may turn from their evil ways, so that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Then Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him. And Jeremiah ordered Baruch, saying, “I am prevented from entering the House of the Lord, so you go yourself, and on a fast day in the hearing of all the people in the Lord’s house you shall read the words of the Lord from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the people of Judah who come up from their towns. It may be that their plea will come before the Lord, and that all of them will turn from their evil ways, for great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people.” And Baruch son of Neriah did all that the prophet Jeremiah ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord’s house…
[The officials] said to [Baruch], “Sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch read it to them. When they heard all the words, they turned to one another in alarm, and they said to Baruch, “We certainly must report all these words to the king.”…Leaving the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, they went to the court of the king; and they reported all these matters to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama, the secretary; and Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in his winter apartment (it was the ninth month), and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier…
Now, after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which King Jehoiakim of Judah has burned…
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the secretary Baruch son of Neriah, who wrote on it at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.
Jeremiah 36:1–32