Jeremiah 8:18 to Jeremiah 9:1. Jeremiah's Sorrow over Judah's Suffering. The prophet, in sorrowful sympathy with his people, hears in anticipation the cry of the exiles and Yahweh's answer. They reproach Him with His abandonment of Zion; He points to their idolatry, and introduction of foreign (strange) deities. The people lament (apparently in proverbial form) the disappointment of their hope of deliverance; it is as when the hope of harvest (April-June) has been destroyed, and the failure of the autumn ingathering (Jeremiah 8:20 mg.) has removed the remaining expectation; they (emph.) have not been rescued from their distress (the reference in saved is to material prosperity, not to a spiritual change). The prophet himself goes arrayed as a mourner (I am black, mg.), appalled because of his people's wound; is there no cure? He cannot sorrow enough for the tragedy of Judah.
Jeremiah 8:22. balm: not the balsam, but mastic, a medicinally used resin, abundant in Gilead (Genesis 37:25, mg.), and exported to other countries. health: Heb. new flesh, which comes up, i.e. forms over a wound.