And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth?

And they asked Baruch, saying, 'Declare, we pray thee, to us, how didst thou write all these words, from his mouth?'

And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did you put all these words down in writing from his mouth?

And they questioned him, saying, "Describe to us how you wrote all these words from his mouth."

Baruch autem interrogarunt, dicendo, Indica agedum nobis quomodo scripseris cunctos sermones istos ex ore ejus?

The king's counsellors were, no doubt, so astonished when they heard that these threatenings had been written as the Prophet had dictated them, that they were agitated by different thoughts, as the unbelieving are wont to be; and not receiving as they ought to have done, the heavenly doctrine, they vacillated, and could not pursue a uniform course. Such, then, was the uncertainty that possessed the minds of the princes; for they could hardly believe that these words had been delivered by memory, but had suspicion of some trickery, as the unbelieving imagine many such things respecting God's servants; and they seem to act thus designedly, that they may obscure God's favor, which appears before their eyes. For this purpose, then, they are said to ask Baruch how he took the words from the mouth of Jeremiah [1] He simply answered, that Jeremiah had pronounced these words to him. They might hence have concluded, that Jeremiah had no roll laid before him, and that he had been not long meditating on what he communicated to his scribe Baruch. And though he seems to have said no more than what might satisfy the princes, yet the purport of the whole is, that Jeremiah did not produce the roll from a recess or his desk, but promptly gave utterance to what God's Spirit suggested to him. Their astonishment, then, must have increased, when the king's counsellors knew that these commands did not proceed from a mortal man, but that, on the contrary, God spoke them by the mouth of Jeremiah, and by the hand of Baruch. It follows, --

Footnotes

1 - Some have made two questions here, -- "How didst thou write all these words? from his mouth?" The answer seems to favor this construction; as usual in Scripture, the last question is answered first, and then the first: Baruch said, "From his mouth he pronounced to me all these words;" and then he adds, answering the first question, "and I wrote on the book with ink." -- Ed.

The scroll might have been drawn up by Baruch from memoranda of his own without the prophet's direct authority. The princes therefore did not ask from curiosity, but to obtain necessary information.

How didst thou write all these words? - At his mouth? - So the text should be pointed. They wished to know whether he had not copied them, or whether he wrote as Jeremiah prophesied.

And they asked Baruch,.... The following question, which may seem at first sight an odd, needless, and trifling one, as some have called it:
saying, tell us now, how didst thou write all these words at his mouth? this question does not regard the manner of writing them, whether with ink or not, for that they could see with their eyes, and yet Baruch's answer seems to have respect to this, as if he so understood them; nor barely the matter of them, as whether it was the substance of what was contained in the roll that Jeremiah dictated, and that only, leaving it to Baruch to use what words he would, or whether the express words were dictated by him; but rather it seems to have regard to the possibility of doing it: by the question it appears, that Baruch had told the princes that the prophet had dictated all these things to him, and he had taken them down in writing from his mouth; now they wanted more satisfaction about the truth of this matter. It was a difficulty with them how it was possible for Jeremiah to recollect so many different discourses and prophecies, delivered at different times, and some many years ago, and so readily dictate them to Baruch, as fast as he could write them; wherefore they desire he would tell them plainly and faithfully the truth of the matter, how it was, that so they might, if they could, affirm it with certainty to the king; since, if this was really fact which he had related, these prophecies originally, and the fresh dictating of them, must be from the Spirit of God, and would certainly have their accomplishment.

What they wished to know was, whether what Baruch had read to them was written by him from memory after hearing Jeremiah repeating his prophecies continuously, or accurately from the prophet's own dictation.