Amos 9:3

Two other examples of remote or inaccessible hiding-places, similarly contrasted; Carmel, rising abruptly out of the sea, and the depths of the ocean which it overhangs. Carmel was in two ways a hiding-place: (1) As usual in limestone formations, it abounds in caves said by some to be more than 2000 in number often of great length, with narrow entrances, and extremely tortuous. These caves are "so close to each other that a pursuer would not discern into which the fugitive had vanished; so serpentine within, that -ten steps apart," says a traveler [198], -we could hear each others" voices, but could not see each other" " (Pusey). (2) The summit of Carmel, about 1800 ft. above the sea, is thickly wooded (see the descriptions quoted on ch. Amos 1:2; and comp. Micah 7:14); in the first cent. a.d., according to Strabo (xvi. 2. 28), its forests were the retreat of robbers. Carmel, projecting into the sea, would be the last hiding-place in the land: if a fugitive found no safety there, he could seek it next only in the sea. But even the sea, as the next clause says, should afford no safety for these Israelites.

[198] Schulz, Leitung des Höchsten, v. 186; Paulus, Reisen, vii. 43.

the serpent In warm tropical regions, highly venomous marine serpents (Hydropidae) are found in the sea (see particulars in Cantor, Zoological Transactions, ii. pp. 303 ff., referred to by Dr Pusey). They are not, however, known in the Mediterranean; and the reference is more probably to an imaginary monster, supposed by the Hebrews to have its home at the bottom of the ocean, and to be at the disposal of the Almighty.