Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 46:11

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

Go up into Gilead, and take balm ... —The words have the tone of a triumphant irony. The “balm of Gilead” was regarded as a cure for all wounds (Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 51:8), but the wounds that Egypt received at Carchemish would be found incurable. It proved, in fact, to be a blow from which the old Egyptian monarchy never recovered. In the “virgin, the daughter of Egypt”—virgin, as being until then, as it boasted, unconquered (Isaiah 23:12)—we have a similar touch of sarcasm. The report of the defeat and the utter rout and confused flight that followed (Jeremiah 46:12) would spread far and wide among the nations.