Commentaries
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.
15. he rebelled—God permitted this because of His wrath against Jerusalem (2Ki 24:20).
horses—in which Egypt abounded and which were forbidden to Israel to seek from Egypt, or indeed to "multiply" at all (De 17:16; Isa 31:1, 3; compare Isa 36:9). Diodorus Siculus [1.45] says that the whole region from Thebes to Memphis was filled with royal stalls, so that twenty thousand chariots with two horses in each could be furnished for war.
Shall he prosper?—The third time this question is asked, with an indignant denial understood (Eze 17:9, 10). Even the heathen believed that breakers of an oath would not "escape" punishment.