The Balm of Gilead

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (Jeremiah 8:22).

This verse in the book of the prophet Jeremiah is well known to readers of the Bible. It has been popularized in scores of titles of books, sermons, and in a well-known African-American spiritual hymn, “There Is a Balm in Gilead”:

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin sicksoul.

This hymn interprets Jeremiah’s words Christologically because the words of the hymn assume that Christ is the Balm of Gilead that can “heal the sin sicksoul.”

Although the text is well known, many of the interpretations of the words of the prophet (or maybe the words of Yahweh) do not reflect the true intent of Jeremiah’s message to the people of Judah. For instance, in a book by T. C. Horton and Charles E. Hurlburt, The Wonderful Names of Our Wonderful Lord (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1996), the authors call Jesus “The Balm of Gilead.” However, I do not think this is what Jeremiah meant when he spoke about the balm of Gilead.

Another problem scholars have is giving the right answer to Jeremiah’s question. Is the answer to Jeremiah’s question “No, there is no balm in Gilead and no, there are no physicians there?” Or is the answer “Yes, there is balm in Gilead and yes, there are physicians there?”

C. F. Keil, in his commentary The Prophecies of Jeremiah (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1950), vol. 1, p. 182 wrote: “To these questions a negative answer is given: if there were balm in Gilead and a physician there, then a plaister would have been laid on the daughter of my people, which is not the case.”

In his book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Sermons from Paul's Letter to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), p. 352, Fleming Rutledge wrote: “When Jeremiah spoke those words, he had every reason to believe that the answer was no. If we don’t understand that there really might not have been any, we will never understand the magnitude of God’s saving work.”

Terence Fretheim, in his commentary on Jeremiah (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2002), p. 154 believes that the answer is positive. He wrote: “The first two questions are rhetorical: Yes, there is balm in Gilead; yes, there are physicians there; but, it is implied, they are powerless to restore health to a patient with this kind of illness.”

Peter C. Craigie, Page H. Kelley, and Joel F. Drinkard, Jr., in their commentary Jeremiah 1-25 (Dallas: Word Books, Publishers, 1991), p. 140, take an ambivalent position. They wrote: “The natural answer to these questions would have to be yes but the reality of the situation demands that Jeremiah answer no.”

The purpose of my post is to provide an alternative reading to Jeremiah’s words, a reading that I believe, reflects the true intent of what Jeremiah was trying to communicate to his audience.

The balm of Gilead was an ointment made from the resin of a tree that was used as a healing ointment. The identity of this tree is unknown although many solutions have been proposed. According to the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead was used for medicine, perfume, and body ointment.

According to Genesis 37:25, an Ishmaelite caravan traveled from Gilead carrying spices, balm and myrrh to sell their merchandise in Egypt. Jeremiah tells the Egyptians to go to Gilead and use its balm because they had used many medicines without finding healing for their sickness (Jeremiah 46:11).

Before a proper identification of the balm of Gilead and the physicians there can be made, it is necessary to identify the illness that caused the incurable wound mentioned by Jeremiah. In order to do this, it is necessary to look at the call of another prophet.

When Yahweh called Isaiah to the prophetic ministry, he gave Isaiah a near impossible mission. Yahweh told Isaiah: “Go, and say to this people: ‘Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Yahweh told Isaiah that his preaching would harden the hearts of the people and they would not listen. The people’s unbelief, their stubborn heart, and their resistence to the prophet’s words were caused by their rebellion against Yahweh.

According to the word of Yahweh to Isaiah, if the people would hear the message the prophet was to proclaim, if they would turn or repent, then they would be healed (v. 10). Thus, it is Yahweh who compares the rebellion of the people with spiritual illness. The rebellion of the people was worse than physical illness and only the message preached by Isaiah could bring the people to repentance and to the healing of its wound.

Thus, the balm of Gilead is a metaphor used by Jeremiah to explain how the people could find a cure for their spiritual illness. The balm that Jeremiah was talking about was not repentance, even though repentance was the first step toward the healing of their wound.

Several times in the Old Testament, the prophets speak about Judah’s rebellion as an incurable wound. Hosea said: “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound” (Hosea 5:13).

Isaiah said: “Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil” (Isaiah 1:5-6).

In the book of Jeremiah, Yahweh spoke of Judah’s illness and its incurable wound. Of Jerusalem, Yahweh said:

“Her sickness and wounds are ever before me” (Jeremiah 6:7).

“For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded” (Jeremiah 8:21).

Why was not the wound of God’s people healed? Because the preaching of the false prophets did not provide the healing the people needed. Yahweh himself accused the prophets of not providing healing to the people. Yahweh spoke these words about the prophets:

“For from the least to the greatest of them, every one is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, every one deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, `Peace, peace,' when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:13-14). The same words are repeated again in Jeremiah 8:10-11. Yahweh is saying that the prophets have healed the wound of the people only lightly because they were preaching the wrong message.

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (Jeremiah 8:22). Jeremiah is proclaiming that Judah is like a person who is sick or wounded. He is also proclaiming that the balm of Gilead is the word of God in the mouth of the prophets and that the prophets are the physicians sent by God to bring the medicine that could heal the people.

Thus, in Jeremiah 8:22, the prophet is saying that there were plenty of physicians in Gilead who could heal the spiritual sickness of the people of Judah, for the physicians were the prophets. There was plenty of balm in Gilead, for the balm of Giled in the mouth of Jeremiah is a metaphor for the word of God being preached by the prophets to a rebellious people. But there was no healing because the prophets were preaching a message that did not bring healing.

Yahweh is the great healer of Israel: “I am the LORD, your healer” (Exodus 15:26). But healing would only come when the prophet faithfully proclaimed the word of God to the people.

The words of Jeremiah have a message for those who preach God’s words. We preach through the power of the Holy Spirit that people’s attitude may be altered, lives may change, and transformation may occur. Those who preach are heralds of God’s truth, proclaiming a message of hope to hungry souls and lonely hearts. Everyone who preaches must remember the words of the prophet Micah: “But I am full of the courage that the LORD's Spirit gives, and have a strong commitment to justice. This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion, and Israel with its sin” (Micah 3:8).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Balm, Gilead, Jeremiah, False Prophets

Jeremiah and Hananiah: Jeremiah’s Ministry

Jeremiah carried out his ministry during a very difficult time in the history of Judah. The latter part of the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth century was a period of constant political uncertainty in Jerusalem and the rest of the nation. Jeremiah had supported the reforms of Josiah, but during the reign of Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, Jeremiah saw that the people were reverting to the old religious practices that existed prior to the reforms.

The deportation of part of the population of Judah to Babylon caused great anxiety among the people, a situation that resulted in a profound division among the political and religious leaders of Judah concerning the future of the nation. Judah enjoyed a brief time of independence under Josiah, time enough for the nation to believe that Assyria’s decline would lead to long term prosperity and stability for Judah. Although there is some debate among scholars whether Jeremiah began his ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah, internal evidence seems to indicate that Jeremiah was an early supporter of the religious reforms that occurred under Josiah.

Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah. He was born in Anathoth, a village in Benjamin, about three miles northeast of Jerusalem. His father was probably a descendant of Abiathar, the priest from Anathoth banished by Solomon because of his support of Adonijah in his bid for David’s throne. Thus, it is probable that Jeremiah and his family were descendants of a very influential family of exiled priests.

Jeremiah probably was born around 742 B.C. and was called to the prophetic ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign (627 B.C.). He was a young man when King Josiah began his reforms in 622 B.C. According to 2 Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah composed a song of lament at the occasion of Josiah’s death.

Although Jeremiah supported Josiah and the goals of Josiah’s reforms, he realized that the results of the reforms were superficial and inadequate to produce real changes in the religion of Judah. For this reason Jeremiah condemned the superficial commitment of the people and their lack of true repentance.

Jeremiah was shocked at the apostasy of the people. His oracles warned the nation about Yahweh’s displeasure with the religious behavior of the people. Jeremiah proclaimed that God’s punishment upon the nation for her apostasy would come from the north: Judah was under God’s judgment.

Jeremiah’s ministry occurred mostly in Jerusalem, where he remained even after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. until after the death of Gedaliah, the governor of Judah, in 582 B.C., when he was taken by force to Egypt, where he died.

Jeremiah’s relationship with some of the Judean kings was turbulent. Jeremiah was opposed to the policies of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah to the point of open hostility. Jehoiakim had abandoned the religious reforms of his father and reinstituted some of the pagan practices Josiah had eliminated. Jehoiakim also abandoned the covenantal commitment the nations had made to serve Yahweh alone. Jeremiah believed Judean servitude to Babylonia was the judgment brought by Yahweh as punishment for the people’s rebellion and for their violation of the demands of the covenant. For this reason, Jeremiah criticized Jehoiakim’s repudiation of his fealty treaty with Nebuchadnezzar, emphasizing that his violation of the treaty was as a sign of his disloyalty to Yahweh. Jeremiah also criticized Jehoiakim for his oppression of the people. Jeremiah’s relationship with Jehoiachin and Zedekiah was no better.

Jeremiah, like the great prophets before him, was distressed by the infidelity of the royal house and the people against God. The people had no sense of guilt for their sins; they had no feelings of shame for their actions. The people of Judah said: “I am innocent” but the LORD said: “'Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned’” (Jeremiah 2:35).

Jeremiah heard Yahweh’s voice calling him to proclaim to a rebellious people what he was about to do. God’s action was intended to bring Judah back to the traditions of the covenant. Jeremiah urged the people to submit to Nebuchadnezzar whom he saw as the Lord’s servant who came to exact retribution on behalf of Yahweh. Jeremiah proclaimed: “If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I destroy it by his hand” ( Jeremiah 27:8).

For Jeremiah, complete submission to Nebuchadnezzar was the will of Yahweh for Judah. Submission to the Babylonian yoke was the prelude that would motivate Judah to return to the demands of the covenant which required the nation to recognize Yahweh as the only God of Israel and which required obedience to his words: “If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples” (Exodus 19:5).

A major role of prophets of the Old Testament was to serve as intermediaries between Yahweh and the people. The prophets’ words impacted themselves and their societies in two ways. First, when the prophets spoke, they spoke as Yahweh’s representatives. Their message was Yahweh’s message. They augmented their authority as messengers by following the tradition of the prophets who preceded them. Secondly, their message sought to have a positive effect on their society by bringing about religious reforms and social change.

Like many of the prophets who preceded him, Jeremiah was considered an outcast in Judah. Jeremiah was on the fringe of society, disliked by many, including some members of his own family, and he became a source of great irritation to the ruling class in Judah. Prophets like Jeremiah, generally operated on the edges of society, usually preaching a message of doom. They spoke of Yahweh’s anger, his judgment, and his freedom to act as he wills. They also proclaimed that Yahweh was a gracious God and the Redeemer of Israel. Any prophet who proclaimed a message of doom provoked the hostility and outrage of prophets who preached an optimistic message. Jeremiah was no exception in being the recipient of much hostility because of his message of submission to Babylon.

While Jeremiah was proclaiming the coming judgment and submission to Nebuchadnezzar, other prophets in Judah were soothing the people’s consciences by proclaiming a message of salvation and declaring that Yahweh was their faithful protector. One such prophet was Hananiah.

To be continued.

Previous posts in this series:

Jeremiah and Hananiah

Jeremiah and Hananiah: The Historical Context

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: False Prophets, Hananiah, Jeremiah, Prophets

Jeremiah and Hananiah

Early in Israel’s history, at the beginning of the monarchy, a group of prophets arose in Israel whose primary function was to challenge the policies of the king. The emergence of the state in Israel brought great changes to the social and religious life of the nation that greatly affected the tribal structures of Israelite society.

Within the development of the prophetic movement in Israel, there arose two types of prophets. The first type was a group of independent prophets who claimed to speak on behalf of Yahweh and who warned the people to return to the old traditions of the covenant. The second type were those prophets who were paid by the temple or the court and who proclaimed the kind of message their patrons desired to hear. The Greek Bible, the Septuagint, called them pseudo prophetes (Jeremiah 14:14 LXX), “false prophets.” These professional prophets came to be known as false prophets not because of their desire to mislead the people, but rather, because they misinterpreted Yahweh’s intentions at times when the nation was facing great dangers.

C. E. Schenk, writing in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia wrote: “In times of moral darkness the false prophets, predicting smooth things for the nation, independent of repentance, consecration and the pursuit of spiritual ideals, were honored above the true prophets who emphasized the moral greatness of Yahweh and the necessity of righteousness for the nation.”

True prophets proclaimed a message of God’s judgment against the rulers and the people because of their violation of the religious and legal traditions of the nation. On the other hand, false prophets preached a message of peace and salvation and predicted the nation’s deliverance from the hands of their enemies. In the end, true prophets were distinguished from false prophets by the outcome of their respective prophesies: “A prophet who predicts peace must carry the burden of proof. Only when his predictions come true can it be known that he is really from the Lord” (Jeremiah 28:9 NLT).

Two prophets who represent these styles of prophetic ministries were Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jeremiah 28). Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, was a peripheral prophet who proclaimed God’s judgment against Judah and the exile in Babylon. Hananiah, on the other hand, proclaimed an optimistic message in which he declared that Jehoiachin, the exiled king of Judah, would be restored and that the vessels of the temple which were taken to Babylon, would be returned to Jerusalem within two years.

The ministries of Jeremiah and Hananiah occurred at a time of great crisis in the life of Judah. In 597 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar had come to Jerusalem, deported Jehoiachin, the royal family, political and religious leaders, and had taken many of the vessels of the temple as trophies of war to Babylon.

The confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah, the son of Azzur and a prophet from Gibeon, took place in the temple (Jeremiah 28:1). The confrontation was a dispute between two prophets who were guided by different understanding of what God was doing in Judah’s conflict with the Babylonians. On one side was Jeremiah, a prophet whose ministry was based on the old covenant traditions which the Lord had established with Israel at Sinai. Jeremiah was profoundly touched by what he perceived to be Judah’s lack of obedience to the demands of the covenant. Jeremiah, who had been called to preach a message of judgment (Jeremiah 1:10), urged the people to return to Yahweh and avoid the total destruction of the nation. Jeremiah saw the coming of the Babylonians and the deportation of Jehoiachin as the beginning of a long exile that would last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11).

Jeremiah’s message to Judah was that the nation should submit to Babylonia and not oppose it, for submission to Babylon was ordained by Yahweh and that out of the humiliation of defeat and servitude, a new covenant would be established with Israel and the nation would be renewed for service in the world.

On the other side of the confrontation was Hananiah, a well-known and popular prophet in Judah. Like Jeremiah, Hananiah probably knew the history of Yahweh’s mighty acts of salvation on behalf of Israel. Hananiah was probably a firm believer in the so-called Zion theology, a view that proclaimed the inviolability of Jerusalem. On the basis of this belief, Hananiah proclaimed that God would not allow the Babylonians to destroy the people of Judah.

These conflicting theological traditions became the reason for the confrontation between the two prophets. The narrative of their encounter in the temple is the story of two men striving to hear God’s voice and interpret contemporary events in terms of divine will.

The encounter between Jeremiah and Hananiah is a classic example of a dispute between a true and a false prophet and how they interpreted God’s will for the people and for the nation. Further, the confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah provides a window into the problem of discerning a true prophet.

In their effort to interpret what God was doing through the coming of the Babylonians, Jeremiah used a legitimate hermeneutic in the right situation and Hananiah used a legitimate hermeneutic in the wrong context. When the people were confronted with two different understandings of what God was doing, how was the audience in the temple to recognize what God was doing in the midst of the anguish caused by the Babylonian invasion? Faced with two contradictory views of God’s work, which one should the people accept as the legitimate interpretation of God’s will? Which prophet was applying prophetic tradition properly to determine what God was doing in the current situation?

In future posts I will study the confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah and will introduce the historical background of the confrontation between the two prophets, the theological perspectives each brought to the confrontation, some biblical characteristics of true prophets, and the outcome of the confrontation.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: False Prophets, Hananiah, Jeremiah, Prophets

What the Bible Predicts Will Happen in the Year 2000

Occasionally, I receive unsolicited papers from people requesting that I read their work and evaluate what they wrote. Most of these papers present exoteric interpretations of the Bible, that at times, border on the bizarre. One paper I read was a defense of polygamy. Most papers, however, deal with the second coming of Christ and events related to the last days.

Many of these papers deal, one way or another, with the prophecies of Daniel. The numbers found in the prophecies of Daniel are intriguing and invite fertile minds to try to solve the mystery behind the numbers.

Biblical numerology fascinates people. Those who study biblical numerology believe that numbers in Scripture show a design that reveals the work of God in the world. The way certain numbers are used in the Bible suggests that their use has a deeper meaning that calls for understanding.

In 1987, I received a paper from a gentleman from Philadelphia (I will not mention his name because he may still be alive today) who did a comprehensive study of the numbers in Daniel. His paper, “What the Bible Predicts for the Year 2000,” was an attempt at demonstrating that God has prepared a comprehensive program of events that will culminate with the coming of Christ.

According to the paper, hidden in the seventy weeks of Daniel was “a blueprint of the disposition of the nations and a prophetic time clock which tells us when specific events will take place in the future.”

In order to study this blueprint, the writer of the paper decoded the mystery of the seventy weeks. This process of decoding the numbers in Daniel is complicated because he took the 490 years of Daniel 9 and changed them to days and then he related the days in Daniel 9 to the 1150 days of Daniel 8:14, the 1290 days of Daniel 12:11, and the 1335 days of Daniel 12:12.

He also worked with the 2 days of Hosea 6:2, years of 360 days and years of 365 days. Don’t ask me to explain; it is just too complicated. After calculating the day Christ was born (February 23, 4 B.C.) and the day of his crucifixion (April 7, 30 A.D.), the author related these dates to the dates in the book of Daniel and came with the following conclusions:

1. The seven-year tribulation will begin on June 16, 1989.
2. The tribulation will end on August 30, 1996.
3. From 1996 to 2000 the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.
4. On April 21, 2000 the first Passover of the millennium will be celebrated in the new temple.

After I read this paper, I felt I should provide some kind of answer to the writer. But, what should I say? I decided to write a detailed evaluation of the paper, showing the writer where he was wrong and where he misinterpreted the text. My response was long and comprehensive. At the end of my response, I reminded him of the words of Christ.

In Matthew 24:36 Jesus said: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” I also reminded him of Jesus’ words to his disciples: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). The fact is, that Jesus never revealed the events of the last days to his disciples nor did he reveal them to us.

There are scores of books on prophecies in stores today that attempt to provide new insights on the books of Daniel and Revelation. These modern-day prophets claim fresh revelation from God and a supernatural wisdom that allows them to understand the prophetic meaning of the numbers in the book of Daniel.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have set several dates for the end of this age. Using the numbers in the book of Daniel, they have arrived at the precise year when the end would come. In a book titled The Time Is At Hand, published in 1902, they wrote (p. 99): “In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the kingdom of God, will be accomplished by the end of A.D. 1914.”

In another article published in the Watchtower on November 1, 1914, they wrote (p. 325): “Studying God’s Word, we have measured the 2520 years, the seven symbolic times, from the year 606 B.C. and have found that it reached down to October, 1914.”

When the events of 1914 did not materialize, the Jehovah’s Witnesses set another date for the end of the present era. Writing in a book titled Millions Now Living Will Never Die, written in 1920, they wrote (p. 88): “Therefore we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old, particularly those named by the Apostle in Hebrews 11, to the condition of human perfection.”

Those who claim new visions and a hidden knowledge about future events should remember the words of the Lord in Deuteronomy: “But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak-- that prophet shall die. You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?’ If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it” (Deuteronomy 18:20-22).

People do not stone false prophets anymore, although they have spoken presumptuously. But we all know that theirs is a message which the Lord has not spoken.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: False Prophets, Prophecy