Jeremiah 7:29

29 "'Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them.

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 "Jeremiah, you will tell all these things to the people of Judah, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you.

28 So say to them, 'This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth; it has disappeared from their lips.

29 "'Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them.

30 The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean.

31 The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind.