3. The Hebrew Bible refers here and there to the reading of books and
letters. The same word spr "sepher" applies to either. On one
side are those which were certainly read by the author's own deputy. I have
already mentioned two important cases: Joshua reading the Torah of Moses (Josh
8:34-35), and Baruch reading the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer 36:1-32). Both
works were long and were intended not only for preservation but for repeated
reading. Thus, when King Jechoiakim had the scroll of Jeremiah burned, the
prophet received another word from the Lord to replace it. The account of the burned
"scroll of a book" (megillat sepher) is our fullest and
clearest datum about an ancient Hebrew book. Jeremiah dictated it to his
secretary Baruch and sent him to read it to all the people in the Temple, from
which Jeremiah himself was excluded. Micaiah the son of Gemariah the son of
Shaphan, the scribe, heard the entire reading and declared to the princes
"all the words that he had heard." This may mean either that he
reported the whole substance of the prophecies, or that he recited the exact
words. The latter is not inconceivable, as he was of a scribal family, and to
remember words accurately must have been a primary qualification for a scribe.
Anyhow, the princes had Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, bring Baruch along with
the scroll and had Baruch read it to them in the scribe's chamber of the
palace. They decided to notify the king, but first they kindly advised Baruch
to take Jeremiah and go into hiding. The king ordered Jehudi to get the scroll
and read it, and he burned it three or four columns at a time. Jehudi, like
Baruch, was not reading by sight but repeating what he had once heard. The
scroll guided his memory. (Saul Levin, “The ‘Qeri’ as the Primary Text of the
Hebrew Bible,” General Linguistics 35, no. 1 [January 1, 1995]: 208)
