Verse 20. - The words receive a special significance as being identical with those which Ezekiel had uttered in Ezekiel 12:13, with the addition that the sin against Nebuchadnezzar as the vicegerent of Jehovah, was a sin against Jehovah himself as the God of faithfulness and truth. There, in Babylon, the real character of his sin should be brought home to the conscience of the blind and captive king. What follows in ver. 21, in like manner, reproduces Ezekiel 12:14, 15.
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.
And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare,.... See Gill on Ezekiel 12:13; where the same words are used, and of the same person:
and I will bring him to Babylon; though, as it is said in the place referred to, he should not see it, his eyes being put out before he was brought thither:
and I will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me; for though it was breaking covenant and oath with a Heathen prince, yet it was a trespass against God, in whose name they were made; and his being laid in prison at Babylon, and kept there to the time of his death, was the Lord's pleading with him, and judging of him; it was a reproof for his sins, and a condemnation of him and them.
and I will bring him to Babylon; though, as it is said in the place referred to, he should not see it, his eyes being put out before he was brought thither:
and I will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me; for though it was breaking covenant and oath with a Heathen prince, yet it was a trespass against God, in whose name they were made; and his being laid in prison at Babylon, and kept there to the time of his death, was the Lord's pleading with him, and judging of him; it was a reproof for his sins, and a condemnation of him and them.