Jehudi unrolls the book gleaming with the words of God, and as he reads Jehoiakim frowns; his eye kindles; his cheek burns; his foot comes down with thundering indignation.
King Jehoiakim snatches the book from Jehudi’s hand, feels for his knife, crumples up the book, and goes to work cutting it up with his penknife. Thus God’s book was permanently destroyed, and the king escaped.
Was it destroyed?
Did Jehoiakim escape?
In a little while King Jehoiakim’s dead body is hurled forth to blacken in the sun, and the only epitaph that he ever had was that which Jeremiah wrote:
“Buried with the burial of an ass.”
To restore the book which was destroyed, Baruch again takes his seat at the table, while Jeremiah walks the floor and again dictates the terrible prophecy.
It would take more penknives than cutler ever sharpened to hew into permanent destruction the Word of God. He who shoots at this eternal rock will feel the bullet rebound into his own torn and lacerated bosom.
When the Almighty goes forth armed with the thunderbolts of His power, I pity any Jehoiakim who attempts to fight Him with a penknife.