Jeremiah 8:22 - Exposition

No hope or remedy is left; again a proverbial expression. No balm in Gilead . Gilead appears to have been celebrated in early times for its balsam, which was expected by Ishmaelites to Egypt ( Genesis 37:25 ) and by Jewish merchants to Tyro ( Ezekiel 27:17 ). It was one of the most costly products of Palestine ( Genesis 43:11 ), and was prized for its medicinal properties in cases of wounds (comp. Jeremiah 46:11 ; Jeremiah 51:8 ). Josephus mentions this balsam several times, but states that it only grew at Jericho ('Antiq.,' 15.4,2), Tristram searched for balsam in its ancient haunts, but in vain; he thinks Jeremiah means the Balsamodendron gileadense or opobalsamum , which in Arabia is used as a medicine both internally and externally. But if Pliny ('Hist. Nat.,' 24.22) may be followed in his wide use of the term "balsam" so as to include the exudations of the "lentisens" or mastick tree, then "balm of Gilead" is still to be found; for the mastick tree "grows commonly all over the country, excepting in the plains and the Jordan valley". Is there no physician there? We hear but little of physicians in the Old Testament. They are only mentioned again in Genesis 1:2 (but with reference to Egypt, where medicine was much cultivated), and in 2 Chronicles 16:12 ; Job 13:4 . From the two latter passages we may, perhaps, infer that physicians were rarely successful; and this is certainly the impression produced by Ecclesiasticus 38:15, "He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician." The remedies employed in the Talmudic period quite bear out this strong saying. The physicians of Gilead, however, probably confined themselves to their one famous simple, the balsam. Is not the health … recovered ? Gesenius renders, less probably, "hath no bandage been applied to the daughter of my people?"