Jeremiah 7:29 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem— See Job 1:20. Isaiah 15:2 and Ezekiel 27:31. Jerusalem is here addressed as a woman under extreme misery, and exhorted to take upon her the habit and disposition of a mourner, and to bewail the calamities which were fallen upon her. Instead of, Take up a lamentation on high places, some read, for the high places; see Jeremiah 7:31-32. To cut off the hair was a mark of extreme grief: the custom was usual among the Pagans also. Achilles, as well as his soldiers, cut off their hair at the funeral of Patroclus. Mr. Pope is of opinion, that this custom of cutting off the hair was not only in token of sorrow, but perhaps had a concealed meaning,—that as the hair was cut from the head, and was never more to be joined to it: so was the dead for ever cut off from the living, never more to return. See his note on Il. 23. ver. 164 and Peters on Job, p. 315. The last words of the verse may be rendered, A most provoking generation; or a generation which hath much angered him.