Jeremiah 8:8-22

I bring the whole of this beautiful Chapter, from this verse to the end into one view, for the sake of shortness, and from necessity; but otherwise nothing could be more desirable than to dwell upon each verse. Taken in one mass, it contains the gracious expostulation of the Lord, with his people: blessed as they were, with every means, but destitute of the desired end. And how beautiful the Chapter closeth. Gilead, was a place remarkable in the land for loveliness, and for health and fertility (see Jeremiah 22:6.) and therefore the question becomes the more striking, as it was intended: Is there no balm in Gilead: no Physician there? Reader! spiritualize the passage, and the beauty of it will still be more blessed. There is balm in Gilead, and there is a Physician there. For Jesus's blood and righteousness is an everlasting, never failing balm: and Jesus himself is there an Almighty, All-present, and All-sufficient Physician, whereby all the diseased in our nature may have in him an healing. If it be asked, why then are we not recovered? Jesus himself answereth; ye will not come to me that ye might have life. John 5:40. Here is the cause. The evil is in man, not in God. Sinners reject the counsel of God against their own souls, and refuse to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely!