So that none of the remnant of Judah
Which were left in the land of Judea after the captivity: which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or
remain;
escape either the sword, or the famine, or the pestilence, or remain in the land of Egypt, or in the land of the living; so general should be the destruction: that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have
a desire to return there;
or, "have lift up their souls F2 to return there": most earnestly desire it, and have raised hopes and expectations of it; for it seems that those Jews that went into Egypt did not go with a design to settle there for ever; but to return to their own land, when there should be better times, and more safety and security there; particularly when they thought the affair of the death of Gedaliah would be no further inquired into: for none shall return but such as shall escape;
out of the hands of Johanan, and the rest of the captains; and should get out of the land of Egypt before the Chaldeans came into it. Some understand this of those that should escape out of Babylon; that none should return to Judea but those of that captivity, who should be released by the proclamation of Cyrus. Jarchi interprets it of Jeremiah and Baruch, whom Nebuchadnezzar removed to Babylon, when Egypt fell into his hands, in the twenty seventh year of his reign, as is related in the Jewish chronicles F3.