Divine signal which
flashed on him to reduce those prophecies to writing and have them recited
to the people by Baruch. We have already followed the story in Ch. XXXVI
of how this was done(328) and of the consequences--the communication of the
Roll to the princes and by them to the king, the king's burning of the
Roll piece by piece as he heard it read, his order for the arrest of
Jeremiah and Baruch, their escape into hiding, and their preparation of a
Second Roll containing all the words of the First with many others like
them. We may now, in addition, note the following.

First there is the Divine Peradventure at the beginning of the story.(329)
_It may be_, God says, that the people will hear and turn from their evil
ways that I may forgive their iniquity--a very significant _perhaps_ when
taken with the Parable of the Potter to which we are coming. Again, the
king at least understands the evil predicted by Jeremiah to be the
destruction of his land and people by the King of Babylon.(330) And again,
though some of the princes encourage the Prophet's escape, and urge the
king not to burn the Roll, none are shocked by the burning.(331) Evidently
in 605-4 they were not so impressed with the divinity of Jeremiah's word
as they had been in 608. Then they did not speak of telling the king; now
they say that they _must tell_(332) him. Jehoiakim's malignant influence
has grown, and Jeremiah discovers the inconstancy of the princes, even of
some friendly to himself.

To the same decisive year, 605-4, _the fourth of Jehoiakim_, is referred
an address by Jeremiah reported in XXV. 1-11 (with perhaps 13_a_). This
repeats the Prophet's charge that his people have refused--now for
three-and-twenty years--to listen to his call for repentance and reaffirms
the certainty, at last made clear by the Battle of Carchemish, that their
deserved doom lies in the hands of a Northern Power, which shall waste
their land and carry them into foreign servitude for seventy years. The
suggestion that this address formed the conclusion of the Second Roll
dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch is suitable to the contents of the address
and becomes more probable if we take as genuine the words in 13_a_, _Thus
will I bring upon that land all My words which I have spoken against her,
all that is written in this Book_. But a curious question rises from the
fact that we have two differing reports of the address.(333) Very
significantly the shorter Greek Version