Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 44:14

14 So that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return, to dwell there: for none shall return but such as shall escape .

There is a great variety in the reading of the words, ver. 14. some reading besides such as have a desire to return. Others, Although they have a desire to return. Others, For they have a desire to return. The words seem to hint that these Jews went into the Land of Egypt not with a design to live there alwayes, but to stay for a while till the heat of the Chaldeans in enquiring after the blood of Gedaliah should be over, then thinking to return into their own Country, which one would think were true, considering it not onely as their Native Soil, but also a place where was now room enough, and they might live in much greater plenty than they could in Egypt. The onely difficulty is in the last words▪ compared with what in the same Verse went before; it is said in the beginning of the verse that none of them should escape, and in the close, none shall return but such as shall escape. But reason will guide us to interpret the first none in a restrained sense, i. e. none of those who have been the Authors of this Counsel and Rebellion against God, and who went into Egypt willingly, for none can think that God involved Ieremiah and Baruch who were in Egypt (at least the first of them) in the same punishment with which he punished the Rebellious Jews. Or none of those who in Egypt have burnt incense to idols, and defiled themselves with the Idolatry of Egypt, but there shall some escape, such as have been forced into Egypt against their Wills; and such as being so forced when they came here did not fall in with the Idolatry of the Egyptians (for we may gather from the next verse, that all of them did not) these men shall again return into the Land of Judah. This to me seemeth the fairest and most probable sense of the words.

Marginal references: Heb. Lift up their souls.