There cannot have been many of the Prophet’s previous Oracles on the first
Roll. This was read three times over in the same day and was probably
limited to such Oracles as were sufficient for its practical purpose of
moving the people of Judah to repentance at a Fast, when their hearts
would be most inclined that way. But when the first Roll was destroyed,
the immediate occasion for which it was written was past, and the second
Roll would naturally have a wider aim. It repeated the first, but in view
of the additions to it seems to have been dictated with the purpose of
giving a permanent form to _all_ the fruits of Jeremiah’s previous
ministry. The battle of Carchemish had confirmed his predictions and put
edge upon them. The destruction of the Jewish people was imminent and the
Prophet’s own life in danger. His enforced retirement along with Baruch
lent him freedom to make a larger selection, if not the full tale, of his
previous prophecies. Hence the phrase _there were added many words like_
those on the first Roll.(35)
If such a Roll as the second existed in the care of Baruch then the use of
it in the compilation of our Book of Jeremiah is extremely probable, and
the probability is confirmed by some features of the Book. Among the
Oracles which can be assigned to Jeremiah’s activity before the fourth
year of Jehoiakim there is on the whole more fidelity to chronological
order than in those which were delivered later, and while the former are
nearly all given without narrative attached to them, and are reported as
from Jeremiah himself in the first person, the latter for the most part
are embedded in narratives, in which he appears in the third person.(36)
Further let us note that if some of the Oracles in the earlier part of the
Book—after the account of the Prophet’s call—are undated, while the dates
of others are stated vaguely; and again, if some, including the story of
the call, appear to be tinged with reflections from experiences of the
Prophet later than the early years of his career, then these two features
support the belief that the Oracles were first reduced to writing at a
distance from their composition and first delivery—a belief in harmony
with the theory of their inclusion and preservation in the Prophet’s
_second_ Roll.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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