Paul Robeson was a negro bass soloist and sang with many famous bands and performed in many movies as well. He makes “Ole’ Man River” come alive! But my favorite of his songs is “There is a Balm in Gilead.” I’m sure the title of that song comes from Jeremiah 8:22 where the prophet asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?” The song answers Jeremiah’s question. It says, “There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.” I’ve looked in vain to find Gilead on the map. There’s no such place today and it’s even confusing as to where it was in Jeremiah’s day. We have no idea what kind of balm it was or how it was made. Ryken says, “Gilead was the land just east of the Jordan River. It was known for its healing balsams. When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, he was sold to a caravan taking balm from Gilead down to Egypt (Genesis 37:25). Scholars have been unable to determine how the balm of Gilead was made, but it seems to have been a soothing, aromatic resin made from a tree or plant. It might be compared to aloe vera. The balm of Gilead was useful in keeping wounds from putrefying.”1 But Jeremiah wasn’t talking about a physical sickness. He was addressing the disease of their sins. It was the “soul-sickness” that the people of Judah needed a physician for. According to Jeremiah and other prophets the sins of the people are “putrifying” or are already “putrefied” and they needed immediate attention. The saying “There is no balm in Gilead” has taken on a meaning in and of itself. According the “Manners and Customs of the Bible,” “Today the expression is sometimes used to mean there appears to be no healing or comforting to be found anywhere. It’s an expression of near hopelessness and despair.”3

Augustus Toplady understood the “balm of Gilead” as being the proclamation of the truth of Jesus Christ. To him sound doctrine and teaching was what could heal a soul. He says it’s originally the Apostle Paul that says this. Toplady writes, “He (Paul) calls the system of gospel truths, sound doctrine: ὑγιαινουση διδασκαλια, salutary, health-giving doctrine; not only right and sound in itself, but conducing to the spiritual strength and health of those that receive it: doctrine, that operates like some efficacious restorative or an exhausted constitution; that renders the sin-sick souls of men healthy, vigorous and thriving; that causes them, through the blessing of divine grace, to grow as the lily, and to cast forth the root as Lebanon, to revive as the corn, and to flourish as the vine, to diffuse their branches, and rival the olive-tree, both in beauty and fruitfulness.3

What the people of Judah needed was someone who could heal all their diseases. To finish Ryken’s quote, “They needed a Great Physician. What they needed, of course, was Jesus Christ. They needed the Christ who, like Jeremiah, wept over the sins of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). But Jesus did more than weep for his people. The Scripture says that he went around “preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23). More than that, he died to heal them from the wounds of sin. Jesus Christ is the balm in Gilead. He is the physician who heals the wounds of God’s people.”1

1 Philip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 169–170.

2 James M. Freeman and Harold J. Chadwick, Manners & Customs of the Bible (North Brunswick, NJ: Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1998), 369.

3 Augustus M. Toplady, The Works of Augustus M. Toplady, vol. 3 (London: Richard Baynes, 1825), 13.