Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 7:29

"Cut off thy hair, [O Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Jehovah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath." — Jeremiah 7:29 (ASV)

Cut off your hair. —Literally, as in 2 Samuel 1:10 and 2 Kings 11:12, your crown or diadem; but the verb determines the meaning. The word Netzer (“consecration” in the Authorized Version) is applied to the unshorn locks of the Nazarite (Numbers 6:7), from which he took his name.

Just as the Nazarite was to shave his head if he came in contact with a corpse, and as cutting the hair close was generally among Semitic races the sign of extreme sorrow (Job 1:20 and Micah 1:16), so Jerusalem was to sit as a woman rejected by her husband and bereaved of her children (compare the picture in Lamentations 1:1-3).

The word is also applied to the “crown” of the high priest in Exodus 29:6 and the “crown” of the anointing oil in Leviticus 21:12.

O Jerusalem. —The italics show that these words are not in the Hebrew, but the insertion of such words was made necessary because the verb “cut off” is in the feminine. Those who heard or read the words of the prophet, who so often spoke of “the daughter of Zion” (Jeremiah 6:2), “the daughter of his people” (Jeremiah 6:14 and Jeremiah 8:11), and “the betrothed of Jehovah” (Jeremiah 2:3), would readily understand his meaning.