In order to characterize the conduct of the king, the writer remarks, "Yet the king and his servants who heard all these words (which Jehudi had read) were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments (in token of deep sorrow); and even when Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah addressed the king, requesting him not to burn the roll, he did not listen to them." So hardened was the king, that he and his servants neither were terrified by the threatenings of the prophet, nor felt deep sorrow, as Josiah did in a similar case (2 Kings 22:11, cf. 1 Kings 21:27), nor did they listen to the earnest representations of the princes. עבדיו are the court-attendants of the king in contrast with the princes, who, according to Jeremiah 36:16, had been alarmed by what they heard read, and wished, by entreaties, to keep the king from the commission of such a wicked act as the destruction of the book. Ewald, on the contrary, has identified עבדיו with the princes, and thereby marred the whole account, while he reproaches the princes with "acting as the wretched instruments of what they knew to be the sentiments prevailing at court."

Jeremiah 36:30 Parallel Commentaries

He shall.

Jeremiah 22:30 Thus said the LORD, Write you this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper...

2 Kings 24:12-15 And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes...

and his.

Jeremiah 22:18 Therefore thus said the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying...

Genesis 31:40 Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from my eyes.

in the. Sir J. Chardin observes, In the Lower Asia, in particular, the day is always hot; and as soon as the sun is fifteen degrees above the horizon, no cold is felt in the depth of winter itself. On the contrary, in the height of summer the nights are as cold as at Paris in the month of March. It is for this reason that in Persia and Turkey they always make use of furred habits in the country, such only being sufficient to resist the cold of the nights. I have travelled in Arabia, and in Mesopotamia, (the theatre of the adventures of Jacob,) both in winter and in summer, and have found the truth of what the Patriarch said, 'That he was scorched with the heat in the day, and stiffened with cold in the night.' (

Genesis 31:40 Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from my eyes.

.) This contrariety in the qualities of the air in twenty-four hours is extremely great in some places, and not conceivable by those that have not felt it; one would imagine that he had passed in a moment from the violent heats of summer to the depth of winter. Thus it had pleased God to temper the heat of the sun by the coldness of night, without which the greatest part of the East would be barren, and a desert.