Now while he was not yet gone back, [he said], go back also to Gedaliah,.... These words, by different versions, are made difficult to be understood, both, whose words they are, and of whom they are spoken.
Jarchi makes them to be words of God, and the sense this,"and by all this he (Jeremiah) had no mind to return; and God said to him, go back to Gedaliah.''According to the Targum, they are the words of Nebuzaradan, which paraphrases them thus;"if thou wilt not return (that is, with him to Babylon, or rather to Jerusalem, or best to his own native place), or if thou wilt not dwell (that is, in this place), go back to Gedaliah.'
'But of whom they are spoken interpreters differ. Some say of Zedekiah, as Cocceius; while he (Zedekiah) does not return, that is, to Jerusalem; which possibly he might, though as yet not determined by the king of Babylon; in the mean while is bid to go to Gedaliah, appointed governor.
Others of Gedaliah, thus, while he (Gedaliah) does not return, but stays at Mizpah, go to him thither.