Ezekiel 17:15-16

However, the vine rebelled against the eagle. Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar and sent to Egypt for arms and troops to resist the Babylonians. Pharaoh Hophra (Gr. Apries, 589-570 B.C.) is the second strong eagle in the riddle to which the vine sent out its roots and branches for sustenance, probably in 588 B.C. (Ezekiel 17:7). If this prophecy is in chronological order, as seems likely, Ezekiel gave it between 592 (Ezekiel 8:1) and 591 B.C. (Ezekiel 20:1). This means that he predicted Zedekiah’s revolt about three years before it happened. For years the pro-Egyptian faction in Jerusalem had advocated seeking help from that direction. Obviously Zedekiah could not escape Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath since he had broken the covenant under which he served him, a covenant that he had sworn in God’s name (cf. Ezekiel 5:7; 2 Chronicles 36:13).

"When Zedekiah made his oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord’s name was invoked as a guarantor of the treaty (see 2 Chronicles 36:13). Consequently when Zedekiah broke his oath to Nebuchadnezzar, he in effect broke a treaty with God." [Note: Chisholm, Handbook on . . ., p. 253.]

An oath was a sacred thing in the ancient Near East, and even oaths made by fraud were normally honored (cf. Joshua 9; 2 Samuel 21:1-2). The Lord swore that Zedekiah would die in Babylon for breaking his covenant with Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Ezekiel 17:19).

"After judgment became inevitable, God’s will for Judah was submission to their foreign conquerors as a sign of their submission to him (Jeremiah 38:17-23)." [Note: Cooper, p. 182.]