Jeremiah 8:21-22

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt, &c. These are the words of the prophet, lamenting the miserable condition of his country. The Hebrew is more literally rendered, For the breach of the daughter of my people am I broken, that is, heart-broken: or, as Houbigant renders it, I am wounded with the wound of my people. I am black I look ghastly, as those who are dying. Astonishment hath taken hold on me I am so stupified that I know not what to do, or which way to turn. Is there no balm in Gilead Balm, or balsam, is used with us as a common name for many of those oily, resinous substances, which flow spontaneously, or by incision, from certain trees or plants, and are of considerable use in medicine and surgery, being good, as physicians inform us, to soften, assuage, warm, dissolve, cleanse, dry up, and purge. The Hebrew word here used, צרי, is rendered by the LXX., ρητινη, and interpreted resin by the ancients in general. For this balm, resin, or turpentine, as the word might be rendered, Gilead was famous from very ancient times. See Genesis 37:25, where we find Joseph was sold to Ishmaelite merchants, who came from Gilead, and carried it, with sweet spices, into Egypt. This made many physicians and surgeons to resort to Gilead. The prophet applies this metaphorically to the state of the Jews, which was all over corrupted, (compare Isaiah 1:6,) and represents God as asking whether there have been no methods used to heal these mortal wounds and distempers? or, if there have, how it comes to pass they should have so little success? As if he had said, Whence comes it that the wounds of my people have not been healed and closed? Have means of healing been wanting? Spiritual medicines or physicians? Have I not sent you prophets, who have admonished, warned, and instructed you? Have I not given you time, and furnished you with helps sufficient to enable you to return to your duty? Why then are not your spiritual disorders cured? Doubtless it is your own fault: it is because you would not make use of the remedies provided, nor follow the prescriptions of the physicians. Thus we may apply the words spoken concerning Babylon, Jeremiah 51:9, to the present case: we would have healed Babylon, but she is not, or rather, she would not, be healed. The words may likewise be understood of a temporal deliverance. As if he had said, Is this people so forsaken both of God and men, that there is no remedy left to effect their deliverance? Are there no salutary means within reach, or no persons that know how to apply them, for the relief of my country from those miseries with which it is afflicted? Observe, reader, if sinners die of their wounds, their blood is upon their own heads. The blood of Christ is balm in Gilead, his Spirit is the physician there: both are sufficient, all-sufficient, to effect a perfect cure; so that they might have been healed, but would not.