What Does Jeremiah 46:11 Mean in the King James?
Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word for “medicines” grows from the same root as “healer,” yet the verse says that many things named for healing can leave the wound unhealed.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now to the reader through Egypt’s wounded daughter: a person can reach for many remedies and still remain unhealed. It holds treatment and restoration apart; having many medicines does not guarantee that recovery follows.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that trying enough remedies guarantees healing.
THE ROOT
רְפֻאוֹת
refu’ot
GROWS FROM
רפא
r-p-ʾ
To heal.
The Hebrew word for these medicines grows from the same root as “healer” and “healing.” The verse holds that promise beside its failure: remedies can multiply while healing itself does not arrive.
ALSO GROWS
rāfāʾ: Heal or restore health.
רָפָא
This is the root’s action, the very outcome that the medicines in the verse do not bring.
rōfēʾ: One who heals.
רֹפֵא
Jeremiah 8:22 uses this same root for “physician,” linking the healer and the remedies to the healing they promise.
marpēʾ: Healing or a means of healing.
מַרְפֵּא
This branch makes the word-family’s promise explicit: a remedy can carry the name of healing without ensuring that healing takes place.
THE PATTERN
The presence of a remedy does not guarantee restoration; the wound is healed only when recovery actually comes.
Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.THE THREAD
Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?The physician in this verse is רֹפֵא (rōfēʾ, healer), from the same root רפא as the medicines named in Jeremiah 46:11. Jeremiah repeats the balm of Gilead and presses the same question: how can remedies and a healer be present while recovery is still missing?
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