Jeremiah 36:23

Three or four leaves... — The English words suggest the idea of a papyrus book rather than a parchment roll (see Note on Jeremiah 36:4), but the Hebrew word (literally = a door) may indicate the column of writing on such a roll, as well as a leaf. The act, in its childish impatience, betrayed the anger of the king. He could not bear to hear of the seventy years of exile which were in store for his people, and which, if we assume the roll to have included the substance of Jeremiah 25, would have come into one of the earlier columns. The word for “pen-knife” is used generally for any sharp instrument of iron — for a razor (Ezekiel 5:1), and for a sword (Isaiah 7:20). Here it is the knife which was used to shape the reed, or calamus, used in writing. It should, perhaps, be noted that the Hebrew, like the English, leaves it uncertain whether the king himself cut and burnt the roll, or Jehudi with his approval. Jeremiah 36:25 is in favour of the former view. We are reminded, as we read the words, of like orders given by Antiochus Epiphanes for the destruction of the Law (1Ma. 1:56), by Diocletian for that of the sacred books of the Christians, perhaps also of those of the Court of Rome for the destruction of the writings of Wyclif and Luther.