And, behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee: thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they are turned away back.
All the women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on. The very evil which Zedekiah wished to escape by disobeying the command to go forth, shall befall him in its worst form thereby. Not merely the Jewish deserters shall "mock" him (Jeremiah 38:19), but the very "women" of his own palace and harem, to gratify their new lords, will taunt him: 'A noble king, in sooth, to suffer thyself to be so imposed on!'
Thy friends - Hebrew, 'men of thy peace' (see Jeremiah 20:10, note; Psalms 41:9, margin) - namely, the king's ministers and the false prophets who had misled him, 'setting him on' to a course which has proved fatal to him.
Thy feet are sunk in the mire. Proverbial for, Thou art involved by "thy friends'" counsels in inextricable difficulties. The phrase perhaps alludes to Jeremiah 38:6; a just retribution for the treatment of Jeremiah, who literally "sank in the mire."
And they are turned away back. Having involved thee in the calamity, they themselves provide for their own safety by deserting to the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 38:19).