Jeremiah 31:8 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

By the north country, is unquestionably meant Babylon, and the land of the Chaldeans, and those places which were northward of Jerusalem; and by the coasts of the earth, all other parts into which any of the Jews had been driven. The meaning of this is, that nothing should hinder such from returning as had a mind to return; blind men that could not see their way, and lame persons, who had no strength to walk in it, though they saw it, and women with child, in regard of their heaviness, and women travailing, in regard of their pain, are persons more unfit to travel long journeys than any others; but saith God, I will make such provision, that some under those circumstances shall come. That these phrases must be interpreted only into this general sense appears, because such persons in a literal sense could not come. And though some worthy interpreters understand it in a spiritual sense, of ignorant and impotent persons, and such as are laden with the burden of their sins, and of coming to Christ, it seems not to be the primary sense of the text.