Balsam of Mecca

For other products called Balm of Gilead, see Balm of Gilead (disambiguation).

Balm of Gilead (also called the balsam of Gilead or Balsam of Mecca) is a resinous gum of the tree Commiphora gileadensis (syn. Commiphora opobalsamum), native to southern Arabia and also naturalized, in ancient and again in modern times, in ancient Judea/Palestine/Israel. The most famous site of balsam production in the region was the Jewish town of Ein Gedi. The resin was valued in medicine and perfume in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Thus Pliny the Elder mentions it as one of the ingredients of the "Royal Perfume" of the Parthians in his Naturalis Historia. In Latin the resin was technically known as opobalsamum; the dried fruit was called carpobalsamum, and the wood xylobalsamum.

When "balm" or "balsam" is mentioned in translations of the Bible this is probably the product that is intended. Its literary connection with Gilead comes from Genesis chapter 37 and from Jeremiah chapters 8 and 46 (quoted below).

Literary occurrence and symbolism

The Book of Genesis alludes to the balm of Gilead in one passage, and the Book of Jeremiah alludes to it in two passages.

Translations excerpted from the JPS Tanakh:

"And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and ladanum, going to carry it down to Egypt." Genesis 37:25

"Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt; in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no cure for thee." Jeremiah 46:11

"Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah 8:22

The obvious understanding for both; "my people" and "the daughter of my people" in Jeremiah 8:22 refers to the Jewish people living in the land of Israel. Rabbinic commentators like Rashi interpreted the balm as a metaphor for teachers, as if to say "Did they not have any righteous men from whom to learn so that they should improve their ways?"

Some Christians interpret this same passage as a prophetic allusion to Jesus. This symbol recurs in some Christian hymns and popular song lyrics. In the refrain to the gospel song "Healing" (1999), Richard Smallwood and his choir ensemble sing the assertion "There is a balm in Gilead".

The speaker in Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" (1845) professes a belief that the "balm in Gilead" can heal his broken heart, because he laments the death of his love (Lenore).

In Act I of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (1882), King Amfortas bears a wound that will not heal because it was inflicted with his own holy spear. A wild woman called Kundry bursts in, and presents the king with an Arabian "balsam". She informs the Knights of the Grail present there that if the balsam does not stimulate the king's recovery, "Arabia does not hide anything more that might heal him."

Balm in Gilead is also the title of an early play by Lanford Wilson.

External links

• The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

Patrick O'Brian makes reference to it in the Aubrey/Maturin canon, book 14, "The Nutmeg of Consolation". At one point Dr. Stephen Maturin is quite sick, presumably from food poisoning. Rather vehemently, he tells his Scottish assistant Macmillan "No" when alcoholic tincture of opium (laudanum) is offered to him. Instead, he says: "..our best course is no doubt bark, steel, saline enemata, rest and above all quiet. True quietness, as you know very well, is not to be expected in a camp full of sailors; but balls of wax provide something not unlike it. They are behind the "BALM of GILEAD".

Bibliography

• Dalby, Andrew (2000), Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices, London: British Museum Press, ISBN 0714127205 , especially pp. 33–35
• Dalby, Andrew (2003), Food in the ancient world from A to Z, London, New York: Routledge, ISBN 0415232597