to go (causatively · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular
hands
וְיָדַ֖יִךְve.ya.Da.yikh
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · conjunction + noun, common both genders dual construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
head
רֹאשֵׁ֑ךְro.Shekh
H7218
the head (as most easily shaken) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
LORD
יְהֹוָה֙Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
rejected
מָאַ֤סma.'As
H3988
to spurn · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
confidences
בְּמִבְטַחַ֔יִךְbe.miv.ta.Cha.yikh
H4009
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
prosper
תַצְלִ֖יחִיtatz.Li.chi
H6743
to push forward · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Samuel 13:19 And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying.
Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
Jeremiah 37:7-10 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to enquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh’s ar…
Ezekiel 17:15-20 But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall…
Numbers 14:41 And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.
2 Chronicles 13:12 And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel,…
Isaiah 10:4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his…
Jeremiah 2:36 Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 2:29–end
The prophet here goes on in the same strain, aiming to bring a sinful people to repentance, that their destruction might be prevented.
I. He avers the truth of the charge. It was evident beyond contradiction; it was the greatest absurdity imaginable in them to think of denying it (Jer 2:29): "Wherefore will you plead with me, and put me upon the proof of it, or wherefore will you go about to plead any thing in excuse of the crime or to obtain a mitigation of the sentence? Your plea will certainly be overruled, and judgment given against you: you know you have all transgressed, one as well as another; why then to you quarrel with me for contending with you?"
II. He heightens it from the consi…
him--Egypt.
hands upon . . . head--expressive of mourning (Sa2 13:19).
in them--in those stays in which thou trustest.
Contrary to all precedent in the case of adultery, Jehovah offers a return to Judah, the spiritual adulteress (Jer 3:1-5). A new portion of the book, ending with the sixth chapter. Judah worse than Israel; yet both shall be restored in the last days (Jer. 3:6-25).
Next: Jeremiah Chapter 3
John Gill on Jeremiah 2:37
Yea, thou shalt go forth from him,.... From the Egyptian, without any help, and with shame; or, "from this" (u); that is, from this place, from Jerusalem, and from the land of Judea, into captivity; notwithstanding all the promised and expected help from Egypt,
John Calvin on Jeremiah 2:37–end
Jeremiah 2:37
37. Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them.
37. Et jam ab hoc (ab hac re, hoc est, propter hoc scelus) egredieris, et manus tuae super caput tuum, quia detestatur Jehova confidentias tuas, et in illis non prospere tibi succedet.
He expresses more clearly what he had said of the shameful character of his own nation, -- that the Jews, who thought that their safety would be secured by the Egyptians, were seeking their own entire ruin. This seemed to them indeed incredible; for as the Egyptians were neighbors, and as the Jews then only feared the Assyrians and Chaldeans, w…
The Church Fathers
Our soldiers were brought low by a similar disdaining pride and by the same outcome. That saying of the prophet was brought home to our army: "The Lord shall cast aside your confidence, and you shall not have prosperity." We were confident in our own wisdom and strength, contrary to the command of God, who says, "Let not the wise person glory in his wisdom or the strong person in his strength, but let him who glories glory in this, to know and understand me, because I am the Lord."
(Verse 37.) And you will be confounded by Egypt, just as you were confounded by Assyria: for you will also go out from there, and your hands will be on your head: because the Lord has broken your confidence (or hope), and you will have nothing prosperous in it. In order to avoid the attack of the Egyptians, they fled to the Assyrians, whose defense was in vain, for we read that they were defeated by the Egyptians. Again, in order to escape the wrath of the Assyrians, they used the help of the Egyptians; whom the Assyrians overcame, as the history tells. Therefore, they are rebuked because, having abandoned hope in the Lord, they rely on the assistance of men, which is totally broken and so destroyed that they cannot find any usefulness in it. Hence it is said: 'And you shall leave this, that is, Egypt, just as you left Assyria; and your hands shall be upon your head, and you shall grieve in vain for having expected help from the Egyptians.' Let us remember the story when Thamar was corrupted and violated by her wicked brother Amnon, and she put her hands sprinkled with ashes on her head, and thus she returned to her house (II Kings XIII).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Confidence · FALSE — FALSE
Head · In grief: The hands placed on — In grief: The hands placed on
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Also from this, i.e., Egypt, shalt thou go away (come back), thy hands upon thy head, i.e., beating them on thy head in grief and dismay (cf. for this gesture Sa2 13:19). זה refers to Egypt, thought of as a people as in Jer 46:8; Isa 19:16, Isa 19:25; and thus is removed Hitz.'s objection, that in that case we must have מבטחים .זאת, objects of confidence. The expression refers equally to Egypt and to Assyria. As God has broken the power of Assyria, so will He also overthrow Egypt's might, thus making all trust in it a shame. להם, in reference to them.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Jeremiah 2:36
Judah, in its unfaithfulness to the Lord, chose unreliable and unfaithful allies. The leaders sought political help from neighbors such as Egypt—as false a friend as Assyria had been a century before.
Rashi on Jeremiah 2:36
degrade yourself Heb. תזלי, an expression of degradation.
to change your way To leave Me and to rely on Egypt for aid in the days of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah (infra 37).
to change Heb. לשנות, an expression of change.
as you were ashamed through Assyria Upon whom Ahaz relied and “he oppressed him and did not strengthen him” (II Chron. 28:20).
