Ezekiel 14:20

20 then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves.

Ezekiel 14:20 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 14:20

Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, [were] in it
Who are again mentioned by name, as in ( Ezekiel 14:14 ) ; and are the three men referred to in ( Ezekiel 14:16 Ezekiel 14:18 ) ; [as] I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor
daughter;
not so much as an only son, or an only daughter, no, not even a single child: the plural number is used before, as in ( Ezekiel 14:16 Ezekiel 14:18 ) ; here the singular, to show how resolutely determined the Lord was upon the destruction of the land; that even the prayers of the best of men among them should not prevail with him to save a single person, no, not a single infant: they shall [but] deliver their own souls by their righteousness;
(See Gill on Ezekiel 14:14).

Ezekiel 14:20 In-Context

18 then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered.

19 Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast,

20 then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves.

21 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

22 Yet, behold, some survivors will be left in it—sons and daughters who will be brought out. They will come out to you, and when you see their conduct and actions, you will be comforted regarding the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem—all that I have brought upon it.