Why would people seek to hide on the top of Carmel?
Amos 9:3 (ESV)
3If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
Carmel was the highest mountain in Israel and considered to be generally inaccessible. It was thickly forested at the top with the forest providing hiding places for robbers.1 Used in conjunction with the bottom of the sea, Carmel represents the limits of the earth.2
3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.