8:22 There is still medicinal ointment 1 available in Gilead!
There is still a physician there! 2
Why then have my dear people 3
not been restored to health? 4
46:11 Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, 5
you dear poor people of Egypt. 6
But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; 7
there will be no healing for you.
1 tn Heb “balm.” The more familiar “ointment” has been used in the translation, supplemented with the adjective “medicinal.”
2 tn Heb “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?” In this context the questions are rhetorical and expect a positive answer, which is made explicit in the translation.
3 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.
4 tn Or more clearly, “restored to spiritual health”; Heb “Why then has healing not come to my dear people?”
5 tn Heb “balm.” See 8:22 and the notes on this phrase there.
6 sn Heb “Virgin Daughter of Egypt.” See the study note on Jer 14:17 for the significance of the use of this figure. The use of the figure here perhaps refers to the fact that Egypt’s geographical isolation allowed her safety and protection that a virgin living at home would enjoy under her father’s protection (so F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 379). By her involvement in the politics of Palestine she had forfeited that safety and protection and was now suffering for it.
7 tn Heb “In vain you multiply [= make use of many] medicines.”