Balm in Gilead

Poe’s troubled narrator asks the black bird, “On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore – / Is there – Is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!’” GENESIS 37:25 records the Israelites carried on trade in “spices, balm, and myrrh” with the “Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead…” From JEREMIAH 8:21-22, we can see that Poe’s narrator has borrowed his question from none other than God Himself, as He asks why His people are not healed of their sins: “For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt…Is there no balm in Gilead…?”