(16) In the place . . . he shall die.--The distinct prophecy of the death of Zedekiah at Babylon is here given in a form to bring out in the strongest light the fitness and justice of his punishment. It was to be in the place of the king to whom he owed his crown, and to whom he had given his fealty, yet against whom he had rebelled. The tense here changes to the future, because the events of this and the following verse were yet to be fulfilled.

Verse 16. - Ezekiel repeats the prediction of Ezekiel 12:13. The prison in Babylon, under the eye of the king against whom he had rebelled; this was to be the outcome-of the alliance with Egypt. The prophecy was probably written when the hopes of Zedekiah and his counsellors were at their highest point, when the Chaldeans had, in fact. raised the siege in anticipation of the arrival of the Egyptian army (Jeremiah 37:5-11). Ezekiel, like Jeremiah (loc. cit.), declared that the relief would be but temporary.

17:11-21 The parable is explained, and the particulars of the history of the Jewish nation at that time may be traced. Zedekiah had been ungrateful to his benefactor, which is a sin against God. In every solemn oath, God is appealed to as a witness of the sincerity of him that swears. Truth is a debt owing to all men. If the professors of the true religion deal treacherously with those of a false religion, their profession makes their sin the worse; and God will the more surely and severely punish it. The Lord will not hold those guiltless who take his name in vain; and no man shall escape the righteous judgment of God who dies under unrepented guilt.As I live, saith the Lord God,.... This is the form of an oath, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; the Lord swears, in his wrath, by himself, by his life; this shows how much he resented, what Zedekiah had done, and how sure and certain his ruin was:

surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king; in Babylon, where Nebuchadnezzar dwelt, that made Zedekiah king of Judah; which is mentioned, to point out the ingratitude of that prince to the king of Babylon:

whose oath he despised, whose covenant he broke; the oath of fealty and, allegiance, which Zedekiah took to Nebuchadnezzar; and the covenant entered into between them, by which the former held the kingdom of Judea of the latter: the oath he made light of, though solemn, one made by the God of Israel; and the covenant he broke, though ratified by an oath; in which things were given to him he could not claim, at least possess, but by the courtesy of the conqueror; these sins were displeasing to God: oaths and covenants, though made with conquerors, and with Heathen princes, are to be kept:

even with him; that is, with Nebuchadnezzar:

in the midst of Babylon he shall die; when first taken he was had to Riblah, and there his eyes were put out; and after that he was carried to Babylon, and put in prison, and there died, Jeremiah 52:9.