Hesekiel 22:30

I sought for a man - I saw that there was a grievous breach made in the moral state and feeling of the people, and I sought for a man that would stand in the gap; that would faithfully exhort, reprove and counsel with all long-suffering and doctrine. But none was to be found!

the hedge--the wall (see on Eze 13:5); image for leading the people to repentance. the gap--the breach (Psa 106:23); image for interceding between the people and God (Gen 20:7; Exo 32:11; Num 16:48). I found none-- (Jer 5:1) --not that literally there was not a righteous man in the city. For Jeremiah, Baruch, &c., were still there; but Jeremiah had been forbidden to pray for the people (Jer 11:14), as being doomed to wrath. None now, of the godly, knowing the desperate state of the people, and God's purpose as to them, was willing longer to interpose between God's wrath and them. And none "among them," that is, among those just enumerated as guilty of such sins (Eze 22:25-29), was morally able for such an office.

And I sought for a man among them,.... among the princes, priests, prophets, and people of the land, who acted the part as above described; for otherwise, no doubt, there were good people in the land, as Jeremiah, Baruch, and others, but not among these: that should make up the hedge; that was broken down by the transgressions of the people, who exceeded all bounds of law and justice; one that would restrain them from sinning, and reform them, and set them a good example; one, as the Targum has it, "whose works were good;'' a good man, that would endeavour by his influence to stop the breaking in of sin, and the consequences of it: and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; in the gap that sin had made, at which the Lord was entering as a man of war to destroy the transgressors; one that should present himself to the Lord on the behalf of the people; seek mercy for them, as the Targum; interpose between God and them, and act the part of an intercessor; pray for them, as Moses did for the people of Israel, that he would not destroy them; see Psa 106:23, but I found none; no reformer of them, no repairer of the breach, nor restorer of paths, to dwell in; no intercessor for them, as Abraham for Sodom, Moses for Israel; or any, like Aaron, that stood between the living and the dead to stay the plague.

Here are three separate messages which God entrusts the prophet to deliver concerning Judah and Jerusalem, and all to the same purport, to show them their sins and the judgments that were coming upon them for those sins. I. Here is a catalogue of their sins, by which they had exposed themselves to shame and for which God would bring them to ruin (v. 1-16). II. They are here compared to dross, and are condemned as dross to the fire (Eze 22:17-22). III. All orders and degrees of men among them are here found guilty of the neglect of the duty of their place and of having contributed to the national guilt, which therefore, since none appeared as intercessors, they must all expect to share in the punishment of (Eze 22:23-31).

22:30-31 In response to the sins of these former community leaders, the Lord sought someone who would rebuild the wall and stand in the gap as a true prophet (see 13:5), someone who would intercede for the people, as Moses did after the people sinned with the gold calf (Exod 32). The Lord found no one to deflect his wrath, so his fury would now be poured out upon them in full measure (cp. Ezek 11:21).