Jer 8:12-22 Is There No Balm or Physician in Gilead?

[Study Aired May 9, 2021]

Jer 8:12  Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
Jer 8:13  I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.
Jer 8:14  Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
Jer 8:15  We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!
Jer 8:16  The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein.
Jer 8:17  For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.
Jer 8:18  When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me.
Jer 8:19  Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?
Jer 8:20  The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Jer 8:21  For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.
Jer 8:22  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

In our study today, the details of our judgment in this present time continue to be revealed, and in revealing to us our own judgment we are also told that the kingdoms of this world are groaning and travailing together with us as we are being judged:

Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

We must realize that our birth precipitates the death of our old man just as the birth of the nation of Israel precipitated the destruction of Egypt when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt:

Exo 10:7  And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?

The ten plagues which the Lord brought upon Egypt were His judgment against Egypt for enslaving Israel. The whole experience typifies His judgment against our own stubborn and rebellious flesh. In other words, the ten plagues upon Egypt typify the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven last plagues which are required to reveal Christ within us. It is a testimony against just how stubborn our corruptible flesh is. It is a testimony of how the Lord hardens our hearts against Himself to the point that we are literally as shameless in our sins and transgressions against Him as Pharaoh was of slaying all the firstborn males of Israel.

Therefore, it is of our own old man that we are told:

Jer 8:12  Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
Jer 8:13  I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.

“The time of [our] visitation” is the time of our judgment. All men reap the fruits of their own ways, either in this present time or later:

Luk 19:41  And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
Luk 19:42  Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
Luk 19:43  For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
Luk 19:44  And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

“There shall be no grapes on the vine nor figs on the tree” means there will be no fruit at all produced in us while we are in the realm of spiritual Babylon. Isaiah had said the exact same thing in these words:

Isa 3:1  For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

In time, if the Lord makes us aware of what He is doing, we are made to realize that we are being judged in this present time, and in time we “learn righteousness”:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

We are told in the New Testament that it is through the chastening work of the Lord’s grace in our lives that we learn to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts:

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12  Teaching [Greek: paideuō, chastening] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

“Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts” is just another way of saying that we are the “inhabitants of the world [who are] learning righteousness [through the] chastening… grace of God”.

This entire prophecy of Jeremiah is all about what we endure while being humbled and chastened to “learn righteousness”:

Jer 8:14  Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

It requires years of offering the loquacious offering of “a multitude of [a fool’s] words” before we learn to be silent before the Lord and appreciate the fiery work of His chastening grace in our lives:

Job 40:3  Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Job 40:4  Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5  Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.

Ecc 5:1  Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
Ecc 5:2  Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
Ecc 5:3  For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.

It requires years of self-righteously looking down on “other men”, before we are given to see that we must get the log out of our own eye before we attempt to get the speck out of our brother’s eye:

Mat 7:1  Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Mat 7:2  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Mat 7:3  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Mat 7:4  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Mat 7:5  Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Luk 18:9  And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Luk 18:10  Two men [our self-righteous old man and our new man] went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Luk 18:12  I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Luk 18:13  And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luk 18:14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

However, the Lord first blinds us to the fact we are spiritually blind until the day He begins to humble us and to open our eyes to acknowledge just how blind we have been from birth:

Isa 42:19  Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

If our heavenly Father has our name written in His book of life for this present time, then we will be searching for peace and wondering why it seems that nothing ever works out as we wish. We will wonder why God seems to have forsaken us as He pours out His chastening wrath upon us in the presence of the whole world as we are being judged and as we are being crucified with Christ:

1Co 4:9  For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.

Gal 2:20  I was crucified together with Christ, and thus it remains (or: I have been jointly put on the crucifixion stake in Christ, and continue thus), yet I continue living! [It is] no longer I, but it is Christ continuously living within ME! (or: No longer an “I” — now Christ constantly lives within, and in union with, me). Now that which I, at the present moment, continue living within flesh, I am constantly living within faith by and in the Son of the God loving me and giving Himself over to another for the sake of me (or: even transmitting Himself, over me; also passing Himself along for me). (John Mitchell New Testament).

Galatians 2:20 is written with the understanding of our judgment being upon us in this present time. However, it requires much time and much chastening to have our eyes opened to that understanding.

Until that time:

Jer 8:15  We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!
Jer 8:16  The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein.

“The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan” signifies that a powerful king has arrived to mete out judgment, which ‘judgment’ in scriptural terms always comes “from Dan… from the north”.

A few verses will suffice to make the point that ‘Dan’ is the northern most tribe in Israel, and that judgment always comes from the north:

Jdg 20:1  Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was gathered together as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, unto the LORD in Mizpeh.

1Sa 3:20  And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD.

2Sa 3:10  To translate the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba.

Eze 9:1  He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near,  even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.
Eze 9:2  And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.

Add to all this the meaning of the name ‘Dan’, and the connection to our judgment in this present time becomes much clearer:

H1835
דּן
dân
dawn
From H1777; judge; Dan, one of the sons of Jacob; also the tribe descended from him, and its territory; likewise a place in Palestine colonized by them: – Dan.

Rachel felt that her barren womb was the Lord’s judgment upon her, and when she gave her maid, Billah, to Jacob as a wife she made this statement when Billah bore Jacob a son:

Gen 30:6  And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.

Just before his death, Jacob blessed his sons and said this of Dan:

Gen 49:16  Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

We are “the land… the city… and those that dwell therein” (Jer 8:16) which is devoured in judgment as the Lord proceeds to humble us and bring us to our wits’ end:

Psa 107:25  For he [the Lord] commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

It is all His work of judging us, and His judgments include these words:

Jer 8:17  For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

Serpents symbolize the adversary and his messengers. They are sent to us from the Lord just as Satan was sent from the Lord to try Job (Job 1 and 2). The Lord sends lying spirits in the mouths of false prophets:

1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

“Lying spirits” bring poisonous lies and false doctrines into our hearts and minds when we are bitten of them. However, we are blinded by the Lord to their deadly venom to the extent that we do not even feel the pain which the Lord gives them to inflict upon us:

Isa 42:24  Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.
Isa 42:25  Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.

We all spend our own ‘70 years’ in the bondage of Babylon totally unaware of the fact that we are a captive of our own sinful ways and our own transgressions, which we refuse to acknowledge:

Jer 3:12  Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.
Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

Jer 25:8  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words,
Jer 25:9  Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Jer 25:10  Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
Jer 25:11  And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

For what seems an eternity the Lord pours out His fury upon us, and yet we are unaware of the Truth that He is ruling in the kingdoms of men. We are unaware that all our trials currently in our experience are Him working them within us, judging us and dragging us to Himself:

Jer 8:18  When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me.
Jer 8:19  Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country:  Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?

Spiritually “a far country” is not a physical country. It is a spiritual condition which separates us from our Lord. We are not yet being made aware of the requirements of being the Lord’s elect, yet we are made to know that we are not pleasing the Lord, and it is a fiery pain to know that. We are being brought to our “wits’ end” (Psa 107:27), but we are not yet given to acknowledge our transgressions and repent of our sins against the Lord. We are being “burned with fire”, but we are not yet given to “know it [nor] lay it to heart” (Isa 42:25).

This is how we feel while we are enduring this time of great trial in our lives:

Jer 8:20  The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Jer 8:21  For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved” is how we feel when being brought to our wits’ end” (Psa 107:27).

“For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt” are the words of Christ and His Christ.

Isa 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them:

We, too, are afflicted with the Lord’s people:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

1Pe 2:24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Christ will, in the end, preserve and strengthen us:

Jer 8:22  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

The answer to the question here implies that there is a balm and a physician in Gilead.

The Hebrew word translated, ‘balm’ is:

H6875
צֳרִי    צְרִי
tserı̂y    tsŏrı̂y
tser-ee’, tsor-ee’
From an unused root meaning to crack (as by pressure), hence to leak; distillation, that is, balsam: – balm.

Brown, Driver and Briggs commentary adds:

BDB Definition:
1) a kind of balsam, balm, salve
1a) as merchandise
1b) as medicine

When Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt, they sold him to a band of Ishmaelites “from Gilead” who were taking ‘balm’, among other spices, from Gilead to sell to the Egyptians:

Gen 37:25 And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

‘Balm’ was a soothing medicinal salve which was valued very highly.

The answer to the Lord’s question is, “Yes, there is a balm and a physician in Gilead.” That ‘balm’ is Christ who is our spiritual physician:

Mar 2:16  And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
Mar 2:17  When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

“Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”

As quoted already:

Isa 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them:

The reason the ‘balm’ and the ‘physician’ are not yet healing and soothing the wound of the Lord’s people is found in the very next verses of Isaiah 63:

Isa 63:10  But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
Isa 63:11  Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him?
Isa 63:12  That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?
Isa 63:13  That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?
Isa 63:14  As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.

Rebelling against and vexing the holy spirit makes the Lord to be our enemy, and having the Lord as our enemy makes the adversary appear small by comparison because we know that the adversary is nothing more than “the Lord’s hand’ (Job 1 and 2).

In the New Testament we are specifically admonished:

Eph 4:30  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Eph 4:31  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Eph 4:32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

The holy spirit poses the question:

Jer 8:22  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

We are the land of Gilead, and Christ is our balm and our physician. It is through the holy spirit that Christ our ‘balm and physician’ dwells within us and tells us to “rejoice in [our] afflictions in [our] flesh”:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

We are also told:

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

“Who now rejoice in my sufferings… in my flesh… as… partakers of Christ’s sufferings” proves that the “balm in Gilead” is a spiritual ‘balm’ which gives us spiritual joy and peace of mind even as we suffer physically “in [our] flesh”. There is no greater balm than the peace which the Lord gives us when He lives His life within us:

Joh 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Christ’s peace is our ‘balm in Gilead”. Christ Himself is our ‘peace offering’, and that peace offering is “a sweet savor unto the Lord”. It is through His Father’s spirit that Christ Himself as “our peace” has removed any and every obstacle between all of us:

Eph 2:14  For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

Along with the apostle Paul, this is my prayer for each of us:

2Th 3:16  Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.

That is our study of our judgment for today. We will begin chapter nine next Sunday, Lord willing.

Jer 9:1  Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Jer 9:2  Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
Jer 9:3  And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.
Jer 9:4  Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
Jer 9:5  And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Jer 9:6  Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.
Jer 9:7  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?
Jer 9:8  Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.
Jer 9:9  Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Jer 9:10  For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.
Jer 9:11  And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
Jer 9:12  Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?
Jer 9:13  And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;