Comentario sobre Cantar de los Cantares 2:14

My dove, in the clefts of the rock. This is said regarding the time when Pharaoh pursued them and overtook them camping by the sea. With no place to escape in front of them because of the sea, and they could not turn to the side because of wild beasts. What did they resemble at that time? A dove that was fleeing from a hawk and entered the clefts of the rocks, where a snake was hissing at her. Should she enter inside, there was the snake; should she go outside, there was the hawk. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, said to her [Yisroel], “Show Me your countenance,” [i.e.,] the quality of your deeds, to whom you turn in time of distress.

O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks: Until now the shekhinah has dwelt with Israel in exile, as our sages said: “‘He sets the childless woman among her household as a happy mother of children’ [Ps. 113:9]. The community of Israel said before the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘My children have made me to dwell, like a weasel, in ruined houses.’”⁷⁸b. Pesahim 118b.

Let me hear your voice. “And the Bnei Yisroel cried out to Adonoy.”³¹Tehillim 107:27.

In the clefts of. In the crannies; this is a term referring to a breach, and similar to this is, “They were frightened יָחוֹגּוּ and they staggered,”³²Yeshayahu 19:17. [and,] “And the land of Yehudah will be for Egypt a dread לְחָגָּא,”³³II Shmuel 10:4. and in the plural form [Scripture] calls them חַגְוֵי [=cracks]. Similarly, [the plural form of] קָצָה [=end] is קַצְוֵי[=ends], and similarly, “and he cut their garments מַדְוֵיהֶם.”³⁴These are the terraces that are dug into hills around fortifications.

Cliff. Eschelons, in O.F. When they make a ditch around the towers and pour the earth above it to raise the mound around it, they make it in many levels, one above the other.

In the concealment of the cliff. There are sometimes holes in them, and reptiles and birds enter therein.