The Scroll & the Book · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Scroll & the Book
A king cut Jeremiah’s scroll into strips and burned it column by column. It was rewritten, and many like words were added — which is what this symbol is for. What is written cannot be unwritten, and the Bible shows it happening rather than claiming it.
What It Stands For
a thing rolled up, and therefore kept
The Hebrew sepher (H5612) means writing: the art or a document, and by implication a book; the Greek biblion (G975) is simply a roll. Two commentators give the physical object its due, and it is worth having in mind before the symbol is read:
Roll - Their books were not like ours, but written in parchment and in the length of it, and so one piece fastened to another, 'till the whole would contain what was to be written, and then it was wrapped or rolled about a round piece of wood, fashioned for that purpose.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Ezekiel 2:9
A roll of a book - מגלת שפר megillath sepher. All ancient books were written so as to be rolled up; hence volumen, a volume, from volvo, I roll.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Ezekiel 2:9
A scroll is written in columns down the length of a joined sheet and then wound onto a rod, which is why the English word volume comes from the Latin for rolling. Two things follow. It can be extended indefinitely by fastening on more — and it is normally written on one side only, because the other side is what your hands touch.
The Scroll That Was Burned
Jeremiah 36, and what happened next
And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire.Not thrown on the fire whole: cut into pieces as it was read, three or four columns at a time.
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, and at Jeremiah’s dictation he wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.The chapter's last verse, and it reports an addition.
When Jehudi had read three or four leaves - Rather columns; for the law, and the sacred Hebrew Books, are written in columns of a certain breadth. דלתות delathoth, signifies gates or openings between column and column, or between section and section. He cut it with the penknife - בתער הספר bethaar hassopher, the knife of the scribe, properly enough penknife. And cast it into the fire - To show his contempt for Gods words.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Jeremiah 36:23
As often as Jehudi read three or four columns, the king cut asunder the part of the roll read; and so he treated the whole, until all the parts read consecutively were cut and burnt
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Jeremiah 36:23
The detail Clarke recovers matters: the “leaves” are columns, and the Hebrew word for them means gates or openings — the white space between one column and the next. Jehoiakim was cutting along the margins. This is not a man losing his temper; it is a man working through a document systematically. And then:
added besides . . . many like words--Sinners gain nothing but additional punishment by setting aside the word of Jehovah. The law was similarly rewritten after the first tables had been broken owing to Israel's idolatry (Ex 32:19, 34:1).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Jeremiah 36:32
JFB reach for the parallel that makes it a pattern rather than an incident. The tablets were broken and rewritten; the scroll was burned and rewritten. In both cases the destruction was real, and in both cases what came back was not less.
Two Prophets Eat a Scroll
Ezekiel 2-3 and Revelation 10, side by side
| Ezekiel, in Babylon | John, on Patmos | |
|---|---|---|
| Who holds it out | “And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein.”Ezekiel 2:9 | “Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel.”Revelation 10:8 |
| What is on it | “It was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.”Ezekiel 2:10 | “A book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.”Revelation 5:1 |
| The warning given first | None about the taste: he is shown the contents instead.Ezekiel 2:10 | “It shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.”Revelation 10:9 |
| The taste | “Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.”Ezekiel 3:3 | “It was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.”Revelation 10:10 |
| What follows | Sent to a people who will not listen.Ezekiel 3:7 | “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”Revelation 10:11 |
Then I looked and saw a hand reaching out to me, and in it was a scroll, which He unrolled before me. And written on the front and back of it were words of lamentation, mourning, and woe.Spread open before he eats it. He is shown the contents first, and they are grief.
“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.'As honey for sweetness': of a scroll whose contents were lamentation.
It was in my mouth as honey - It was joyous to me to receive the Divine message, to be thus let into the secrets of the Divine counsel, and I promised myself much comfort in that intimate acquaintance with which I was favored by the Supreme Being.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Ezekiel 3:3
His finding the roll sweet to the taste at first, is because it was the Lord's will he was doing, and because, divesting himself of carnal feeling, he regarded God's will as always agreeable, however bitter might be the message of judgment to be announced.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Revelation 10:9
Both commentators land in the same place without agreeing in advance: the sweetness is not about the news being good. It is about being given the message at all. Victorinus of Pettau, writing before 304, splits the taste between the hearer and the messenger:
To be sweet in the mouth is the reward of the preaching of the speaker, and is most pleasant to the hearers; but it is most bitter both to those that announce it, and to those that persevere in its commandments through suffering.
Victorinus of Pettau· Commentary on the Apocalypse, 280Latin, third century
Revelation 10:10
Eating a book: what the gesture meantVictorinus, and the honest limit
Victorinus offers the plainest reading of the action itself: “To take the book and eat it up, is, when exhibition of a thing is made to one, to commit it to memory.” — that is, taking a document into yourself so that you carry it without the document. It fits both scenes: Ezekiel is immediately sent to speak, and John is immediately told he must prophesy again.
The honest limit: neither passage explains the gesture, and neither prophet comments on it afterwards. The parallel between the two is real and checkable; the meaning assigned to it is a reading, and the readings offered have been broadly similar for eighteen centuries.
Written on Both Sides
Revelation 5:1, and a detail worth catching
Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One seated on the throne. It had writing on both sides and was sealed with seven seals.'Written within and on the backside': the same description as Ezekiel's roll, six centuries earlier.
A book written within and on the back side - That is, the book was full of solemn contents within, but it was sealed; and on the back side was a superscription indicating its contents. It was a labelled book, or one written on each side of the skin, which was not usual.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Revelation 5:1
Sealed with seven seals - As seven is a number of perfection, it may mean that the book was so sealed that the seals could neither be counterfeited nor broken
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Revelation 5:1
“Which was not usual.” Clarke says it in passing and it is the whole observation: a scroll written front and back is a scroll that has been filled. Nothing further is going to be added to this one: which is a different thing from Jeremiah’s, and a deliberate one. What happens next in the chapter is that nobody can open it, and John weeps, and then a Lamb takes it.
The Book with Names In It
Exodus 32, Psalm 139, Daniel 12, Revelation 20
Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.” The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot out of My book.Moses offers a substitution and is refused, and the refusal is the principle, not the mood.
Whosoever hath sinned, him will I blot out of my book - The soul that sins shall die, and not the innocent for the guilty.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Exodus 32:33
It is probable that one part of Moses work during the forty days of his residence on the mount with God, was his regulating the muster-roll of all the tribes and families of Israel, in reference to the parts they were respectively to act in the different transactions in the wilderness, promised land, etc.; and this, being done under the immediate direction of God, is termed Gods book which he had written
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Exodus 32:32
Clarke’s suggestion (that the book in view is a register of the tribes, a muster-roll) is offered as a probability and marked as one. What is not in doubt is the answer Moses receives, and Wesley states it without softening. The offer of a substitute is declined here; the reader who knows where the Bible goes will notice that it is not declined for ever.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.A book written before the body was formed, and the word for the unformed body is itself a rolling word.
The noun, then, means that which is rolled or wrapped together; that which is folded up, and hence, is applicable to anything folded up or undeveloped; and would thus most aptly denote the embryo, or the foetus, where all the members of the body are as yet folded up, or undeveloped; that is, before they have assumed their distinct form and proportions.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Psalm 139:16
And in thy book - Where thou recordest all things. Perhaps the allusion here would be to the book of an architect or draftsman, who, before his work is begun, draws his plan, or sketches it for the direction of the workmen.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Psalm 139:16
Barnes has found something quietly beautiful. The Hebrew golem — a word that appears once in the whole Bible — means a thing rolled or folded up, used of a body not yet unfolded into its shape. A scroll and an unborn child are described by the same idea, in a verse about a book, and the psalm does not point it out.
“At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress, the likes of which will not have occurred from the beginning of nations until that time. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.'Every one that shall be found written in the book': deliverance defined by an entry.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books.Books, and then another book. Two different things are open at once.
We are justified by faith, but judged according to (not by) our works.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Revelation 20:12
He calls the knowledge of God "the book."
Theodoret of Cyrus· Commentary on Daniel 12, 433Antiochene
Daniel 12:1
What kind of book is meant?Augustine's answer, and what the text settles
Augustine faced the obvious difficulty (a literal ledger of every deed of every person would take longer to read than history has lasted) and proposed that the image describes something other than a volume:
“No, the book in question must symbolize some divine action in virtue of which each person will recall his deeds, good or bad, and review them mentally so that, without a moment's delay, each one's conscience will be either burdened or unburdened and thus, collectively and individually, all will be judged at the same moment.”
What the text settles is narrower and firmer than either the literal or the symbolic reading: there are books and there is another book, the two are distinguished, and the second is named the book of life. Whether the first is a record or an illumination, Scripture does not say.
What Scripture says outright
- Jeremiah 36:32
The chapter reports the outcome itself: rewritten, and there were added besides unto them many like words.
- Exodus 32:33
God answers Moses’ offer with a stated principle: whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
- Revelation 5:1
The scroll is described as written on both sides and sealed seven times: the description is the text’s, not a commentator’s.
What readers have heard in it
Readings, named as such.
- Revelation 5:1
That the sealed scroll is a title deed, a testament, or the Old Testament (so Victorinus in the third century). Each has been argued from the practice of the period; Revelation identifies it only by what it does when opened.
- Exodus 32:32
That the book here is a register of the tribes rather than a book of eternal life. Clarke suggests it as probable and labels it so; the text does not define the book.
- Revelation 20:12
That the books are literal volumes, or that they are the awakened conscience (so Augustine). The passage distinguishes the books from the book of life and leaves their nature open.
The Voices
with the work named
Adam Clarke does most of the physical work on this symbol: how a scroll was made, why “leaves” are columns, what the scribe’s knife was, and the passing note that a roll written on both sides was not usual. Albert Barnes finds the single-occurrence Hebrew word behind Psalm 139:16 and its rolling sense. Wesley states the principle of Exodus 32:33 in one line. JFB catch the pattern between the broken tablets and the burned scroll. Victorinus, the earliest Latin commentator on Revelation, divides the honey from the bitterness between hearer and messenger; Augustine asks what sort of book could hold every human life.
Where to Go Next
Where the scroll is the whole scene
How the Book came to us
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: