Jeremiah 8:8-17, Sawfer, Old Testament Scribes

The Gospels make several references to “scribes,” often connected by Jesus with the Pharisees.  Some translations call them “lawyers.” They were experts in the Law of Moses, being those who copied the Scriptures and those who studied them.  They would have provided much fodder for the Pharisees who considered themselves keepers of the Law.

These “scribes,” while not mentioned in the Mosaic Law alongside the priests and Levites and prophets, nevertheless have their roots later in the OT.  The Hebrew word for “scribe” (sawfer) means to “count” and often recording that count by “inscription.”  It is used 161x in 154 verses, the first being in Gen. 15:5 when the LORD told Abraham to look to heaven and count the stars if you can number them. 

On 50 occasions the KJV translates the word “scribe.”  Most of these come from the historical books, and Isaiah, where they refer to the “king’s scribe.”  This was the “clerk and recorder” in OT times.  Obviously, he did lots of counting and recording, not just numbers but history and events during a king’s reign.  Isaiah 33:18 says, Your heart will meditate on terror: Where is the scribe?  Where is he who weighs?  Where is he who counts the towers?

But then there was Baruch and Ezra.  Baruch was Jeremiah’s “secretary” before the Babylonian captivity. Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the instruction of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And besides, there were added to them many similar words (Jer. 36:32). Later we see that Baruch was a man with authority, respected by the people (Jer. 43:3).

Jeremiah also speaks of “scribes” in today’s Scripture reading, that they were in cahoots with the false prophets of the day who were preaching “peace, peace.”  This is valuable context for Jesus’ words for the scribes in the NT.  In Mark 12 Jesus noted that it was the scribes who interpreted the Scriptures, saying that the Christ is the son of David (12:35-38).  But then He rebukes them for how they lived only for themselves (12:39-40).  As Jeremiah put it, they forsook God’s Law to follow the dictates of their own hearts (8:13-14).

After the Babylonian captivity there was Ezra.  He is called a “scribe” with this descriptive phrase: a skilled scribe in the Law of Moses (Ezra 7:6), having prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel (7:10), expert in the words of the commandments of the LORD, and of His statutes to Israel (7:11), a scribe of the Law of the God of heaven (7:12,21; so called by the Persians).  In Nehemiah Ezra was told to bring the Book of the Law of Moses (8:1), which he stood on a platform (8:4) and read publicly.  Ezra shows us what a scribe could be and how he could be used of God in the society of Israel.  They did not have to be corrupt as the tended to be in Jesus’ day.