“But those of them who escape, will escape, and will be on the mountains like doves of the valley, all of them mourning, every one in his iniquity.”
Inevitably some will escape and flee to the mountains, but they will be little better off. The mountains will no longer be a place of rejoicing and exulting, of sexual encounters and of throwing off restraint in the name of religion (Ezekiel 6:7). Rather they will mourn like the doves of the valley. Doves are associated with mourning because of their doleful cry (Isaiah 38:14; Isaiah 59:11), and they dwell in the rock and make their nest in the side of the hole's mouth (Jeremiah 48:28). Thus will those who escape be perched on the rocks, living in holes, away from all the joys of life, with little to hope for but eking out a living.