Why will ye die, thou and thy people, the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence,.... Through a blockade of the Chaldean army, which would invade their land, and besiege their city, upon a refusal to be subject to their yoke:
as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? as the Lord has threatened shall be the case of any and everyone of the above nations that should refuse to be tributary to him; of which, no doubt, Zedekiah and his court had been apprized; see Jeremiah 27:8.