22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? For wherefore hath not the health of the daughter of my people gone up?
And they sit down to eat bread, and they lift up their eyes, and look, and lo, a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, and their camels bearing spices, and balm, and myrrh, going to take `them' down to Egypt.
Go up to Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt, In vain thou hast multiplied medicines, Healing there is none for thee.
For thus said Jehovah: Incurable is thy breach, grievous thy stroke, There is none judging thy cause to bind up, Healing medicines there are none for thee. all loving thee have forgotten thee, Thee they do not seek, For with the stroke of an enemy I smote thee, The chastisement of a fierce one, Because of the abundance of thy iniquity, Mighty have been thy sins! What! -- thou criest concerning thy breach! Incurable `is' thy pain, Because of the abundance of thy iniquity, Mighty have been thy sins! I have done these to thee. Therefore all consuming thee are consumed, And all thine adversaries -- all of them -- Into captivity do go, And thy spoilers have been for a spoil, And all thy plunderers I give up to plunder. For I increase health to thee, And from thy strokes I do heal thee, An affirmation of Jehovah, For `Outcast' they have called to thee, `Zion it `is', there is none seeking for her.'
And Israel their father saith unto them, `If so, now, this do: take of the praised thing of the land in your vessels, and take down to the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds;
Wherefore are ye stricken any more? Ye do add apostacy! Every head is become diseased, and every heart `is' sick. From the sole of the foot -- unto the head, There is no soundness in it, Wound, and bruise, and fresh smiting! They have not been closed nor bound, Nor have they softened with ointment.
and the Pharisees having seen, said to his disciples, `Wherefore with the tax-gatherers and sinners doth your teacher eat?' And Jesus having heard, said to them, `They who are whole have no need of a physician, but they who are ill;
And Jesus answering said unto them, `They who are well have no need of a physician, but they that are ill: I came not to call righteous men, but sinners, to reformation.'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 8
Commentary on Jeremiah 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
The prophet proceeds, in this chapter, both to magnify and to justify the destruction that God was bringing upon this people, to show how grievous it would be and yet how righteous.
Jer 8:1-3
These verses might fitly have been joined to the close of the foregoing chapter, as giving a further description of the dreadful desolation which the army of the Chaldeans should make in the land. It shall strangely alter the property of death itself, and for the worse too.
Jer 8:4-12
The prophet here is instructed to set before this people the folly of their impenitence, which was it that brought this ruin upon them. They are here represented as the most stupid senseless people in the world, that would not be made wise by all the methods that Infinite Wisdom took to bring them to themselves and their right mind, and so to prevent the ruin that was coming upon them.
Jer 8:13-22
In these verses we have,