To the moles and to the bats— Bats and other vermin haunt old ruinated places. So Thevenot, describing the opened pyramid, tells us, there are a great many bats in it, which sometimes put out the candles that are made use of in examining that most ancient building; that a particular hole, which he describes, had a great quantity of their dung in it; and that they so swarmed there, that a Scotch gentleman who was in the company, and who seems alone to have had the courage to go down into it, was afraid that he should have been eaten up by them. Egmont and Heyman mention the same circumstance, but enrich their account with the addition of owls, snakes, and other reptiles; for which reason they thought it necessary to fire off some pistols before they ventured into the pyramid, these creatures being by that means frighted away to their lurking places. I do not know how accurate they are in mentioning snakes in the pyramid; but it is certain, that in buildings more ruinated than that, such dangerous kinds of reptiles are very common. Thus Rauwolff, in his account of Babylon, tells us, that some of its ruins are so full of vermin, which have bored holes through them, that one may not come near them within half a mile, but only two months in the winter, when they come not out of their holes. Are we not rather to understand the words of the prophet in this place (which seem to signify diggers of holes) of these sorts of animals, rather than of moles, which a single Hebrew term is supposed to express, Leviticus 11:30 and that have no connection, which I know of, with ruins? For the thought of the prophet seems to me to be, that the inhabitants of that country were to go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth to hide themselves from the vengeance of the Lord, to be executed by hostile armies; leaving their temples, with their idols in them, to be demolished by their hands; in which state of desolation these idols should long lie, companions of those animals which are wont to bore holes in ruins, and also of bats, the frequenters of such destroyed places; not that they were to carry their idols into caves and holes of the earth to secrete them from their enemies. See Observations, p. 423.
Related Commentaries of Isaiah 2:20
Isaiah 2:20
20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;