Bible Strands
Jeremiah 36:2
“Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah until today.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD issues this command to Jeremiah during the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign over Judah. The directive follows a prolonged period of prophetic warnings that began in Josiah’s reign and continue to the present.
The words — The Hebrew imperative קַח־ (kach-) translates literally as “take,” and מְגִלַּת־ (me.gi.lat-) means “a scroll.” These terms specify the exact physical instrument required for the recording task.
The thread — This instruction parallels the command in Jeremiah 30:2 to inscribe all spoken words in a book and the scroll directive in Exodus 17:14. It also reflects the broader prophetic commission in Jeremiah 1:10 to address nations and kingdoms.
Why it lands — The text demands the systematic preservation of divine warnings regarding Israel, Judah, and all nations. A reader must recognize the necessity of documenting prophetic speech to establish a permanent record for potential repentance and forgiveness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 30:2 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you.
- Exodus 17:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua, because I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”
- Jeremiah 1:10 See, I have appointed you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and plant.”
- Jeremiah 25:3 “From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—twenty-three years—the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.
- Jeremiah 36:6 so you are to go to the house of the LORD on a day of fasting, and in the hearing of the people you are to read the words of the LORD from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who are coming from their cities.
- Psalms 40:7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll:
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Jeremiah 36:23 And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire.
- Jeremiah 51:60 Jeremiah had written on a single scroll about all the disaster that would come upon Babylon—all these words that had been written concerning Babylon.
- Ezekiel 2:9 Then I looked and saw a hand reaching out to me, and in it was a scroll,