18. Cave Dwellings

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
Listen from:
Genesis 19:30. He [Lot] dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.
The country of Judea being mountainous and rocky is full of caverns. Caves and clefts in the rock were probably among the earliest dwelling-places of man. The inhabitants of Mount Taurus, even to this day, live in caves, as do many of the wandering shepherds of Arabia Petrea. Thus Lot found a home for himself and his daughters. Some of these caves are of immense size, capable of holding hundreds, and even thousands, of people, and might easily be converted into strongholds for troops. It was in this way that the children of Israel sheltered themselves from the Midianites (Judges 6:2), and from the Philistines (1 Samuel 13:6). It was thus that David, with four hundred men, was concealed in the cave Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1-2), and afterward with six hundred in Ziph and in En-gedi (1 Sam. 23:13-14,29; 1 Sam. 24:3). Caves have been common places of resort for the persecuted people of God in all ages. See Hebrews 11:38.