ירמיהו, פרק ל״ו, פסוק ד׳

Turning divine messages into a permanent written record demands a close partnership between a prophet and a scribe. In this process, deep spiritual inspiration and memory are transformed into physical words on a scroll. To accomplish this, Jeremiah relied on Baruch son of Neriah, who served as his personal scribe [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. The method was straightforward: Jeremiah spoke aloud, dictating the messages, while Baruch physically wrote them down on the parchment [מצודת דוד]. Because these prophecies carried such immense importance, Jeremiah remembered them perfectly, allowing him to dictate all of them in a single sitting [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. The resulting text was highly precise, capturing the themes and commands exactly as Jeremiah had received them from God [מצודת דוד].

This reliance on a scribe raises a natural question as to why Jeremiah did not write the words himself. Typically, he recorded his own prophecies in clear, elegant language. However, the creation of this specific scroll was different. It was composed under divine inspiration, which represents a lower spiritual level than direct prophecy. This shift to a lower spiritual state made the process more difficult for Jeremiah, leading him to depend on Baruch to ease the physical burden of writing. Evidence of this lower level of revelation is found later on, when the recorded messages are referred to as the words of Jeremiah rather than the words of God, which would have been the expected phrasing for a direct prophecy [מלבי ם בשם האברבנאל].