3 Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He had contrasted heaven and hell, as places impossible for man to reach; as I David says, "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there: If l make my bed in hell, behold Thee" Psalm 139:8. Now, of places in a manner accessible, he contrasts Mount Carmel, which rises abruptly out of the sea, with depths of that ocean which it overhangs. Carmel was in two ways a hiding place.
1) Through its caves (some say 1,000 , some 2,000) with which it is perforated, whose entrance sometimes scarcely admits a single man; so close to each other, that a pursuer would not discern into which the fugitive had vanished; so serpentine within, that, "10 steps apart," says a traveler , "we could hear each others' voices, but could not see each other." : "Carmel is perforated by a hundredfold greater or lesser clefts. Even in the garb of loveliness and richness, the majestic Mount, by its clefts, caves, and rocky battlements, excites in the wanderer who sees them for the first time, a feeling of mingled wonder and fear. A whole army of enemies, as of nature's terrors, could hide themselves in these rock-clefts."
2) Its summit, about 1800 feet above the sea , "is covered with pines and oaks, and lower down with olive and laurel trees" . These forests furnished hiding places to robberhordes at the time of our Lord. In those caves, Elijah probably at times was hidden from the persecution of Ahab and Jezebel. It seems to be spoken of as his abode 1-Kings 18:19, as also one resort of Elishas 2-Kings 2:25; 2-Kings 4:25. Carmel, as the western extremity of the land, projecting into the sea, was the last place which a fugitive would reach. If he found no safety there, there was none in his whole land. Nor was there by sea;
And though they be hid - (rather, "hide themselves") from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent The sea too has its deadly serpents. Their classes are few; the individuals in those classes are much more numerous than those of the land-serpents . Their shoals have furnished to sailors tokens of approaching land . Their chief abode, as traced in modern times, is between the Tropics .
The ancients knew of them perhaps in the Persian gulf or perhaps the Red Sea . All are "highly venomous" and "very ferocious." : "The virulence of their venom is equal to that of the "most" pernicious land-serpents." All things, with their will or without it through animal instinct, as the serpent, or their savage passions, as the Assyrian, fulfill the will of God. As, at His command, the fish whom He had prepared, swallowed Jonah, for his preservation, so, at His "command, the serpent" should come forth from the recesses of the sea to the sinner's greater suffering.
Though they hide themselves - All these are metaphorical expressions, to show the impossibility of escape.
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the (c) serpent, and he shall bite them:
(c) He shows that God will declare himself as an enemy to them in all places, and that his elements and all his creatures will be enemies to destroy them.
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel,.... One of the highest mountains in the land of Israel; in the woods upon it, and caves in it:
I will search and take them out from thence: by directing their enemies where to find them: so the Targum,
"if they think to be hid in the tops of the towers of castles, thither will I command the searchers, and they shall search them:''
and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea; get into ships, going by sea to distant parts; or make their escape to isles upon the sea afar off, where they may think themselves safe:
thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them; the dragon that is in the sea, Isaiah 27:1; the great whale in the sea, or the leviathan, so Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; and is that kind of whale which is called the "Zygaena", as Bochart (w) thinks; and which he, from various writers, describes as very monstrous, horrible, and terrible, having five rows of teeth, and very numerous; and which not only devours other large fishes, but men swimming it meets with; and, having such teeth, with great propriety may be said to bite. It appears from hence that there are sea serpents, as well as land ones, to which the allusion is. Erich Pantoppidan, the present bishop of Bergen (x), speaks of a "see ormen", or sea snake, in the northern seas, which he describes as very monstrous and very terrible to seafaring men, being of seven or eight folds, each fold a fathom distant; nay, of the length of a cable, a hundred fathom, or six hundred English feet; yea, of one as thick as a pipe of wine, with twenty five folds. Some such terrible creature is here respected, though figuratively understood, and designs some crafty, powerful, and cruel enemy. The Targum paraphrases it, though hid
"in the isles of the sea, thither will I command the people strong like serpents, and they shall kill them;''
see Psalm 139:9.
(w) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 13. p. 747. (x) Natural History of Norway, par. 2. p. 198, 199, 207.
Carmel--where the forests, and, on the west side, the caves, furnished hiding-places (Amos 1:2; Judges 6:2; 1-Samuel 13:6).
the sea--the Mediterranean, which flows at the foot of Mount Carmel; forming a strong antithesis to it.
command the serpent--the sea-serpent, a term used for any great water monster (Isaiah 27:1). The symbol of cruel and oppressive kings (Psalm 74:13-14).
The serpent - The crocodile or shark.
*More commentary available at chapter level.