608 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTShiding and to tell no one where they were. The princes were obviously con-
cerned about their safety.
After leaving the scroll in Elishama's chamber, the princes went to the king
and reported to him what had been read lo au assembly over at the Temple.
The king then sent Jehudi to fetch the scroll, which he did, and once back in
the king's presence, Jehudi read the scroll to the king with the princes stand-
ing by. The audience is told that the king was sitting in his winter house, in
the ninth month, warming himself before a fire in the stove. As Jehudi read
three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut what had fallen to the ground
with a scribal knife, probably belonging to Jehudi, and threw it into the fire.
This continued until the entire scroll was consumed. No one trembled, not
the king, not his servants, not even the princes who had anxious faces mo-
ments earlier, and no one tore their garments. Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gema-
riah, however, had urged the king strongly not to burn the scroll. But he
would not listen. The audience will perhaps have remembered what took
place when Josiah had read to him a newly found law-book some 18 years ear-
lier, one with judgment written all over it, and how this good king rent his
clothes and carried out in all haste a solemn ceremony of covenant renewal.
Nothing like this happened now. Jehoiakim dispatched Jerahmeel, the king's
son, and two others to seize Baruch and Jeremiah. But the audience is told
that Yahweh hid them.
When this narrative is heard after the segment preceding, the summary
statement of v 8 will be an introduction to the detailed account that now fol-
lows (Duhm). The audience needed to know more about what happened
when Barncl1 rea<l the scroll. Now it finds out. Some in the audience may
have heard about the public reading from other sources, but they will not
know what went on behind the scenes. Now, with an extraordinary walking
tour through the libraries and inner chambers of the Temple and the palace,
places to which none in the audience had direct access, they find out that
Baruch was among friends in the inner sanctums and that the princes acted to
protect Baruch and Jeremiah when they perceived that their lives were in dan-
ger. The visit to the king's winter house also shows the people just how arro-
gant and defiant this king was, not only toward Baruch and Jeremiah, but
more importantly toward a message that had come to him and the nation from
Yahweh God.
John Milton's portrayal of the underworld council following Satan's speech
in Paradise Lost (ii 420-23) might well describe the princes here when they
heard the words of Jeremiah's scroll:
But all sat mute
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each
In other's countenance read his own dismay
Astonished.
(Carey and Fowler 1968: 527)