For the hurt ... hurt - literally, "Because of the breaking ... broken." These are the words of the prophet, whose heart is crushed by the cry of his countrymen.

I am black - Or, I go mourning.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt,.... These are the words, not of God, as Jerom; nor of Jerusalem, as the Targum; but of the prophet, as Kimchi observes, expressing his sympathy with the people in their affliction: and they may be rendered, "for the breach of the daughter of my people" (o), which was made when the city was broken up and destroyed, Jeremiah 52:7.

I am broken; in heart and spirit:

I am black; with grief and sorrow. The Targum is,

"my face is covered with blackness, black as a pot.''

Astonishment hath taken hold on me; at the miseries that were come upon his people; and there was no remedy for them, which occasion the following words.

(o) "super contritione", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "super confractione", Schmidt; "ob fractionem", Cocceius.

The hopeless case of the people and kingdom moves the seer so deeply, that he bursts forth with the cry: For the breaking of my people I am broken (the Hoph. השׁבּרתּי, of the breaking of the heart, only here; in this sig. usu. the Niph., e.g., Jeremiah 38:7. Horror hath taken hold on me, is stronger than: Anguish hath taken hold on me, Jeremiah 6:24, Micah 4:9. Help is nowhere to be found. This thought is in Jeremiah 8:22 clothed in the question: Is there no balm in Gilead, or no physician there? "There" points back to Gilead. Graf's remark, that "it is not known that the physicians were got from that quarter," shows nothing more than that its author has mistaken the figurative force of the words. צרי, balsam, is mentioned in Genesis 37:25 as an article of commerce carried by Midianite merchants to Egypt (cf. Ezekiel 27:17), but is hardly the real balsam from Mecca (amyris opobalsamum), which during the Roman sovereignty was grown under culture in the gardens of Jericho, and which only succeeds in a climate little short of tropical. It was more likely the resina of the ancients, a gum procured from the terebinth or mastic tree (lentiscus, σχῖνος), which, acc. to Plin. h. nat. xxiv. 22, was held in esteem as a medicament for wounds (resolvitur resina ad vulnerum usus et malagmata oleo). Acc. to our passage and Jeremiah 46:11, cf. Genesis 37:25, it was procured chiefly from Gilead; cf. Movers, Phniz. ii. 3, S. 220ff., and the remarks on Genesis 37:25. To these questions a negative answer is given. From this we explain the introduction of a further question with כּי: 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. As to עלתה , lit., a plaister comes upon, see on Jeremiah 30:17.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I {q} hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

(q) The prophet speaks this.

8:21 Am I hurt - The prophet here shews how deeply he is affected with the peoples misery. Black - I am as those that are clad in deep mourning.

21. black-sad in visage with grief (Joe 2:6).

8:14-22 At length they begin to see the hand of God lifted up. And when God appears against us, every thing that is against us appears formidable. As salvation only can be found in the Lord, so the present moment should be seized. Is there no medicine proper for a sick and dying kingdom? Is there no skilful, faithful hand to apply the medicine? Yes, God is able to help and to heal them. If sinners die of their wounds, their blood is upon their own heads. The blood of Christ is balm in Gilead, his Spirit is the Physician there, all-sufficient; so that the people may be healed, but will not. Thus men die unpardoned and unchanged, for they will not come to Christ to be saved.