What is the context?
The officials store the scroll and report to the king, who has it brought and read. He hears the warning in his winter quarters before a fire.
As several columns are read, he cuts and burns them until the scroll is gone. The account contrasts this action and the lack of repentance with the fear shown earlier by the officials.
Three officials urge him not to burn it, but he refuses. He then orders Baruch and Jeremiah arrested, while the Lord keeps them hidden.
The king attacks both the written message and its human messengers. Destroying the document is presented as refusal to heed what it says.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley reads the destruction as the king’s impatient rejection and the hiding as God’s providential protection. The chapter also preserves the dissenting officials’ names, so the court is not portrayed as uniformly approving the burning.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.
Where can I study this further?
No deeper study linked yet.