Jeremiah 7:29

29 Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

Jeremiah 7:29 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 7:29

Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away
This supplement is made, because the word is feminine; and therefore cannot be directed to the prophet, but to Jerusalem, and its inhabitants; shaving the head is a sign of mourning, ( Job 1:20 ) and this is enjoined, to show that there would soon be a reason for it; wherefore it follows: and take up a lamentation on high places:
that it might be heard afar off; or because of the idolatry frequently committed in high places. The Targum is,

``pluck off the hair for thy great ones that are carried captive, and take up a lamentation for the princes:''

for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath;
a generation of men, deserving of the wrath of God, and appointed to it, on whom he determined to pour it out; of which his rejection and forsaking of them was a token: this was remarkably true of that generation in which Christ and his apostles lived, who disbelieved the Messiah, and had no faith in him, and spoke lying and blasphemous words concerning him; and therefore were rejected and forsaken by the Lord; and wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

Jeremiah 7:29 In-Context

27 When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.

28 Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.

29 Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

30 For the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.