We have already noted that the fourth year of King Yehoyakim marked a turning point: the rise of King Nevukhadnetzar and his victory at the Battle of Carchemish set Babylon on its course as the dominant regional power. In that year, God commands Yirmiyahu to write down his prophecies and read them before all Israel in an attempt to shake them into listening and repenting.

The public reading of these prophecies is meant to stir the people of Israel to repentance, not merely by invoking frightening visions of calamity, but by highlighting Yirmiyahu’s stature as a prophet. From the time Yirmiyahu began prophesying in the days of Yoshiyahu until now, for twenty-three years, he has warned of the “nation from the north”, yet the people of Israel refused to heed his words, turning instead to the false prophets. Now, as the Babylonian threat looms undeniably before them, perhaps they will finally be willing to listen to the one who foresaw it long before anyone else.

Though Yirmiyahu dictates the prophecy to Barukh son of Neriya immediately, he delays its public reading until a “fast day”, when all of Yehuda would gather at the House of the Lord. Babylonian chronicles reveal why this fast was declared in the ninth month of the fifth year of Yehoyakim’s reign: the records of the Babylonian kings describe how the king of Babylon launched a military campaign in the region of Israel, subjugating the kings of the Hittites, exacting tribute, and devastating the city of Ashkelon — conquering, destroying, and plundering it in the month of Kislev (the ninth month) of that very year. It seems that the Kingdom of Yehuda perceived this conquest as a sign of the Babylonian threat and declared a national day of fasting and supplication. This day was the perfect moment to invoke all of Yirmiyahu’s prophecies and present the proper course of action — repentance.

The reading of the prophecy makes an impression on the officials who hear it, and they hope it will influence the king as well. Yet the king is stubborn. Rather than taking heed, he seeks to defy the prophecy by burning it. It is unclear whether Yehoyakim believes that burning the scroll could nullify its decrees or whether his act is purely symbolic, an expression of his utter disdain — but in either case, he refuses to accept the message and persists in leading Yehuda toward destruction. The scroll of prophecies that Yirmiyahu dictates anew to Barukh son of Neriya is even greater and more detailed than before, and in time, it becomes the Book of Yirmiyahu as we know it. Rav Yoel Bin-Nun explains that the prophecies from Chapters 2–11, which date to the time of Yoshiyahu, were likely the original contents of the prophetic scroll (Chapter 4 contains the warning of the nation from the north, and it seems that this was the fourth column of the scroll — precisely where Yehoyakim began burning it), and the rest of the book is the expansions that the people of Yehuda “were granted.”