Why does the Lord say that he has made a covenant with “your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”?

The description in Jeremiah 34:8–11 of how the people treated the covenant Zedekiah made with them describes the context for what the Lord has to say to them next (see Jeremiah 34:8a;Jeremiah 34:12). The Lord speaks of the covenant that he made with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. This is of course referring to the covenant that the Lord made with Israel at Mount Sinai, the same covenant that was renewed in the book of Deuteronomy just before they entered the land. Part of the covenant dealt with how Israel should treat those who had been forced into slavery. They were to be set free after they had served six years (see Exodus 21:1–4; Deuteronomy 15:12). The motivation for this covenant commandment was that the people themselves had been set free by the Lord from slavery in Egypt (Deuteronomy 15:15). Through Jeremiah, the Lord reminds Zedekiah and the people of Judah of this when he says that he brought their fathers out of Egypt, the house of bondage (Exodus 13:13, Exodus 13:14; Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 6:12; Deuteronomy 7:8; Deuteronomy 8:14; Deuteronomy 13:5, Deuteronomy 13:10). In other words, Israel’s covenant obedience and faithfulness was rooted in the grace they had received from the Lord. This was especially true regarding how they were to treat slaves.