Cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the desolate heights; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’
Parallel translations
- WEB Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
- KJV Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
- BSB 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.’
- NASB ‘Cut off your hair and throw it away, And take up a song of mourning on the bare heights; For the Lord has rejected and forsaken The generation of His wrath.’
- NLT Shave your head in mourning, and weep alone on the mountains. For the Lord has rejected and forsaken this generation that has provoked his fury.’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God calls for mourning, cutting off the hair and lamenting, because He has rejected this generation under His wrath. The fitting response to such judgment is heartfelt grief.
Overview
Cutting the hair was a sign of mourning and shame. The 'generation of his wrath' is the people whom God has set under judgment for their persistent sin. The lament both expresses sorrow and serves as a final plea, reminding readers of the seriousness of provoking a holy God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Job 1:20Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.
- Mic 1:16Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!
- Jer 6:30Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”
- Jer 16:6Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;
- Jer 47:5Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing, the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself?
- Deut 32:5They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation.
- Matt 3:7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
- Ezek 19:1“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
- Jer 48:37For every head is bald, and every beard clipped. There are cuttings on all the hands, and sackcloth on the waist.
- Matt 12:39But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.
- 2 Kgs 17:20Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.
- Ezek 28:12Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
- Jer 9:17–21Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come.
- Matt 16:4An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there will be no sign given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” He left them, and departed.
- Acts 2:40With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
- Matt 23:36Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
- Zech 11:8–9I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.
- Isa 15:2–3They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 7:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.