09/28/2026
Interesting historical find ...
Jeremiah's personal scribe left his fingerprint in the clay of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 36 is one of the most detailed accounts in the prophetic books of how a biblical text was actually produced. Jeremiah, prevented from entering the Temple himself, dictated his words to his scribe Baruch son of Neriah. Baruch wrote them on a scroll. He read them publicly in the Temple. He read them before officials in the palace. He read them before the king.
The king cut the scroll apart with a penknife and burned it section by section in a brazier as it was read to him.
Baruch and Jeremiah rewrote the whole thing.
Baruch son of Neriah is not a minor figure. He was the man who physically wrote the words that became the Book of Jeremiah. He was Jeremiah's closest companion through the siege of Jerusalem, the Babylonian destruction and the aftermath. His name appears throughout the book.
In 1975 a collection of clay bullae — the small clay seal impressions used in the ancient world to authenticate documents — was acquired by an Israeli antiquities dealer. They had apparently come from an archaeological context in the Jerusalem area. Among them was a small clay impression bearing an ancient Hebrew inscription.
When the inscription was read it said — Belonging to Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe.
Berekhyahu is the full Hebrew form of Baruch. Neriyahu is the full form of Neriah. The title — the scribe — matches exactly how Baruch is described in the Book of Jeremiah.
A second bulla bearing what appears to be the seal of Jerahmeel son of the king — a figure also mentioned in Jeremiah 36 as one of the officials who sought to arrest Baruch — was found in the same collection.
The scribe who wrote Jeremiah's words pressed his seal into clay in Jerusalem.
Archaeologists found it two and a half thousand years later.
Share this with someone who thinks the named figures in the prophetic books are literary inventions.
"Then Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and while Jeremiah dictated all the words the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll." — Jeremiah 36:4
