Joshua 10:16

Ver. 16. But these five kings fled— That is, the kings mentioned above, in ver. 3. And hid themselves, &c. escaped from the sword of the conqueror; they had eluded the pursuit and the hail, by taking a different road from that of their main army: perhaps too they had prepared, for any event, beasts to carry them off with all dispatch. Be that as it may, they retired into a cavern near Makkedah, (for so the Hebrew particle should be rendered here and in ver. 10.) and there concluded themselves safe. Caves, it seems, dug in the rocks, are very common in those countries; they are places of retreat, and forts, whither the people retire at the time of war and invasion. We find several accounts of them collected by Reland in his Palaest. Sacr. l. iii. p. 648.