Shelemiah שֶׁלֶמְיָהוּ

Who is Shelemiah in the Bible?

Shelemiah was a biblical figure mentioned in Jeremiah 36:14 as the grandfather of Jehudi, a man who played a minor but significant role during the reign of King Jehoiakim. When the prophet Jeremiah's scribe Baruch read Jeremiah's prophetic scroll in the temple, the officials sent Jehudi to retrieve it, and Jehudi subsequently read the scroll aloud to the officials in the chamber of Elishama the scribe. Though Shelemiah himself appears only in genealogical reference as Jehudi's paternal grandfather, he is part of the lineage connected to a pivotal moment when Judah's leadership rejected God's word, as King Jehoiakim famously burned the scroll after hearing its contents. This episode demonstrates how God's message was both preserved and resisted during the final days before Jerusalem's fall.