Balsam of Mecca
Balsam of Mecca (or balsam of Gilead or balm of Gilead) 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).
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Origin of "Balm in Gilead"
From the Jewish Publication Society - 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
Jews understand both the "daughter of my people" and "my people" in the 3rd passage above to mean Jews living in the land of Israel. Rabbinic commentators like Rashi have understood the balm to be 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?"
Christians believe that the balm represents their messiah, who they believe appeared in Gilead in the person of Jesus Christ and for that reason the term has come into spiritual meaning in the English language, including its songs and literature.
References in literature, art, and popular culture
"There is a Balm in Gilead" featured in Fried Green Tomatoes sung by Idgie Threadgoode's character. One of Threadgoode's memorable lines, 'I don't know what's worse, church or jail.'
"Balm of Gilead" is mentioned in Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". The character believes that the "balm in Gilead" can heal his broken heart, because he is lamenting for the death of his love, Lenore.
Richard Wagner's last complete music drama, Parsifal, also includes a reference to the balsam of Mecca. In Act I, Kundry enters and presents the wounded King a "balsam," assuring the knights of the Grail that if it does not assuage the suffering royal's pain, "Arabia does not hide anything more that might heal him."
"There Is A Balm In Gilead" is a well-known Negro spiritual.
Balm in Gilead is a play by Lanford Wilson (1965) about various junkies, criminals, prostitutes and other street characters in a New York City diner.
The phrase "There is balm in Gilead" also appears in a Roald Dahl short story, as words of consolation from one inmate of a mental asylum to another.
The phrase "There is a balm in Gilead" is part of a refrain in a 1999 Gospel song entitled "Healing". The song is written and performed by Stellar Award winning Gospel artist, Richard Smallwood and his choir ensemble, "Vision".
Balm of Gilead appears several times in Ken Kesey's book Sometimes a Great Notion, usually as a euphemism for alcohol.
In Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul On Ice," the Balm of Gilead is the Omnipotent Administrator's consolation that he finds in the Supermasculine Menial (closer to the Power Source). It is a sexual consolation of bodily impotence, and a Freudian fetish.
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer mentions Aunt Polly thinks of herself as "...the balm of Gilead in disguise," in Chapter XII: The Cat and the Pain-killer.
Chris Onstad references Balm in Gilead in the webcomic Achewood, alluding to a hangover cure. The comic can be found at [1].
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, is set in a post-apocalyptic United States of America now called "Republic of Gilead"; a rebellious character, Moira, twists the biblical line into the pun "there is a bomb in Gilead".
External links
Patrick O'Brian makes reference to it in the Aubrey/Mautrin cannon, book 14, "The Nutmeg of Consolation". Dr. Stephan Mautrin was quite sick, presumably from food poisoning, he tells his Scottish assistant Macmillan, rather vehemently, "No" to the alcoholic tincture of opium (laudanum) and instead: "..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 0415232597fr:Commiphora opobalsamum
