We return to our Sunday Singing hymn selections with this moving African spiritual, “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” Kathleen Battle & Jessye Norman sing with The New York Philharmonic in the recording above.
It’s a song that provokes you to ask often we should tell people of the living hope that’s been given to us. How often should we echo the words of the prophet in Jeremiah 46:11 (ESV)?
“Go up to Gilead, and take balm,
O virgin daughter of Egypt!
In vain you have used many medicines;
there is no healing for you.”
Other medicines don’t actually work, but the balm in Gilead will heal us completely.
Refrain
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
- Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again. - If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul,
you can tell the love of Jesus
and say, “He died for all.”