Jonah 3:7

Proclaimed. When the wave of penitence and humility that began with the people reached the king, he confirmed the fasting by an official decree. His nobles were associated with him in the issuing of this decree, indicating that their spirit was akin to his in this crisis.

Nor beast. A strange decree, but we must remember that it was issued by a heathen king who had been but partially enlightened. A similar custom is referred to in the Apocryphal book of Judith, written probably in the 2d century B.C.: “And every man of Israel cried to God with great intensity, they and their wives and their children and their cattle and every stranger and hired servant and their slaves put on sackcloth upon their lions” (Judith 4:9, 10). Herodotus reports that on one occasion the Persians cut off their own hair and the hair (manes and tails?) of their horses and beasts of burden in a time of general mourning (ix. 24). But to what extent these practices may have reflected the Assyrian customs we do not know.