Amos 9:2

"Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall my hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. 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 serpent, and it shall bite them. And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good."

This passage is a further elaboration of what was said in the conclusion of Amos 9:1, that, "not one of them shall escape." There is no teaching here to the effect that anyone could hide from God, or that it would be necessary for God to "search" for any who might be attempting to do so. This is highly accommodative language used to emphasize the inevitability of their destruction and the utter impossibility of any person being able to escape it.

"Hide in the top of Carmel ..." Harper tells us that Carmel was noted for, "its limestone caves, said to exceed 2,000 in number, and to be so close together and so serpentine as to make the discovery of a fugitive entirely impossible."[7]

"The whole passage simply wishes to say that there is no place in the whole universe where they can feel themselves secure against Yahweh.[8]

"Though they go into captivity ..." Amos had pointedly prophesied this fate for Israel; and this is a terrifying amplification of it, showing that the captivity in store for them will not be a benign and favorable one (as it had been in Egypt, at first); but it will be terminal. The historical disappearance of the ten tribes after the Assyrian captivity is proof enough of what happened. W. R. Harper, and other later commentators following his views, have supposed that this clause is addressed to an Israelite conception (borrowed from paganism, into which the whole nation had slipped) to the effect that, "In a strange and foreign land, they would be under the power of the god or gods of that land,"[9] and not any longer under Jehovah! We do not believe there is anything like this in view, either in this place or in Jonah 1:1.