“Will he prosper? Will he escape who does such things? Will he break the covenant and yet escape? As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the midst of Babylon he will die.”
The rebellion, which was strictly against the revealed will of Yahweh through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 27:12-15), was doomed from the start. Egypt made a show of strength, and the siege on Jerusalem was lifted for a time (Jeremiah 37:5; Jeremiah 37:11), but they were no match for Nebuchadnezzar as Jeremiah had foretold. Here great emphasis is laid on Zedekiah's failure to keep his oath and observe the terms of the treaty he had made with Nebuchadnezzar.
But the point is not so much that he broke the treaty, treaties made under duress were often being broken, but that he broke a treaty which had the approval of Yahweh. It was not only a covenant with Nebuchadnezzar, it was a covenant with Yahweh Himself (Ezekiel 17:19).
These words of Ezekiel would seem to have been given at the time when the rebellion was in process. And like Jeremiah he forecast only one end, defeat and humiliation, and resultant permanent exile in Babylon.