John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 3. And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel , etc.] 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 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 f238 , 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 <19D909> Psalm 139:9).
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-10 - The prophet, in vision, saw the Lord standing upon the idolatrous alta at Bethel. Wherever sinners flee from God's justice, it will overtak them. Those whom God brings to heaven by his grace, shall never be cas down; but those who seek to climb thither by vain confidence i themselves, will be cast down and filled with shame. That which make escape impossible and ruin sure, is, that God will set his eyes upo them for evil, not for good. Wretched must those be on whom the Lor looks for evil, and not for good. The Lord would scatter the Jews, an visit them with calamities, as the corn is shaken in a sieve; but he would save some from among them. The astonishing preservation of the Jews as a distinct people, seems here foretold. If professors make themselves like the world, God will level them with the world. The sinners who thus flatter themselves, shall find that their professio will not protect them.
Original Hebrew ואם518 יחבאו2244 בראשׁ7218 הכרמל3760 משׁם8033 אחפשׂ2664 ולקחתים3947 ואם518 יסתרו5641 מנגד5048 עיני5869 בקרקע7172 הים3220 משׁם8033 אצוה6680 את853 הנחשׁ5175 ונשׁכם׃5391
