Ezekiel 22:30

Yahweh had looked for one of the Judahites who would lead a reformation that would defend the people from God’s judgment, but He could not find anyone. [Note: See D. Edmond Hiebert, Working with God: Scriptural Studies in Intercession, pp. 99-108.] Building up the wall and standing in the gap formed by a breach in the wall were appropriate figures for fortifying the people in their hour of need.

In chapter 14 the Lord said that no righteous person could deliver the nation from judgment by his own righteousness, not even Noah, Daniel, or Job. Here He said that He could find no one who could lead the people back to God.

"Such a statement is hyperbole, purposeful exaggeration for effect. It hardly means that no one at all in Jerusalem in the early 580s was righteous. . . . It means rather that there were so few among the people who were righteous that the net effect was as if no one at all cared about God’s Will." [Note: Stuart, p. 218.]

Obviously there were prophets who were faithful to the Lord in Judah during its last days, like Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Evidently the Lord did not mean that He was without any faithful representatives but that even these men were ineffective in stemming the tide of ungodliness. They did not fail because they were deficient but because the people were so thoroughly defiant. No one could return them to following the Mosaic Covenant faithfully as, for example, Hezekiah had done earlier and as Josiah had tried to do. Furthermore, Jeremiah and his fellow prophets lacked the political authority to lead Judah back from the brink of disaster.

Moses had been a "gap man" in his day (Exodus 32:11; cf. Genesis 20:7). He had turned aside the Lord’s wrath from the Israelites with His intercessory prayers. God responded to Moses’ pleas for mercy because the people were still malleable enough to repent. He did not respond to Jeremiah’s prayers for mercy because the Judahites were now hardened in opposition to His will (Jeremiah 7:16-17; Jeremiah 14:11-12).