Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the
house of the Lord
The prophecies of Jeremiah he had taken from him in writing on a roll of parchment; these he read in the temple, in a part of it, after described: in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe;
not a scribe of the law, or an officer of the temple, but the king's chancellor or secretary of state; for this is the title, not of Gemariah, who had a chamber in the temple here mentioned, in which Baruch read his roll, and was an officer there, but of Shaphan, as the accents show, and as his title runs elsewhere, ( 2 Kings 22:9 2 Kings 22:10 ) ; which chamber was in the higher court;
it looked into it, which some say was the court of the priests; but into that Baruch, not being a priest, could not enter: rather, according to Dr. Lightfoot, it was the court of Israel, on the same ground with it, though parted from it, and divided from the court of the women by a wall, to which they went by an ascent of fifteen steps; so that it might with great propriety be called the higher court: at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house;
the eastern gate, as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret it: here Baruch read his roll, in the ears of all the people;
that were in the court; so that being in a chamber, he must read out of the chamber window, or in a balcony before it.