Jeremiah 36:27-32

Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, after the king had burned the scroll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, “Take again another scroll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Yahweh says: “You have burned this scroll, saying, “Why have you written therein, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cause to cease from there man and animal?’ ” ’ Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. I will punish him, his offspring, and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they didn’t listen.” ’ ”

Then Jeremiah took another scroll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.

I believe that there is a very real possibility that Satan thought that he had won at this point. It appeared that he actually got God to curse the line of the Messiah. God had promised that there would always be a king on David’s throne, but here, God actually declares that Jehoiakim will never have a descendent on the throne. This actually became a very serious issue. How was God going to save Israel now?

There’s another issue that causes difficulties in the New Testament. Have you ever noticed that the genealogies for Jesus are different in Matthew and in Luke? It has been determined that the one in Matthew follows the genealogy of Joseph and the one in Luke follows Mary’s genealogy. Did you also notice that one of Joseph’s ancestors is none other than Jeconiah which was Jehoiakim’s son? Well, God walked around the problem with ease. He caused Mary, who was also a blood relative of David, to conceive without the help of Joseph and then had Joseph adopt Jesus. God left the genealogies in His word for us to figure out later. So Jesus was a blood relative of David and a rightful heir to the throne of Israel through Joseph! As you can see, God is in the details.

God also walked around the problem that Jehoiakim produced by burning God’s word. He simply had Jeremiah do it again, only this time, Jehoiakim was cursed and “many similar words were added” to the new book. The new edition was an expanded edition! As a side note, I discovered this principle as a software engineer. There were times when we had to re-make a software system and I don’t remember a time when the second system wasn’t an improvement on the first. God has a way of doing that through us. We don’t need to worry when it seems that all hope is lost. When God is in charge, it just means that something better is about to happen.