Jonah 1:7. Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.
1. On the subject of lots, see note on Proverbs 18:18 (#463).
2. It was a common opinion among sailors that the misconduct done by a person might bring disaster on the whole company. This notion still prevails, not only among heathen mariners, but to some extent among sailors belonging to Christian nations, many of whom have strangely superstitious ideas. Rosenmüller says, in illustration of this ancient opinion: “Thus, (according to Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 3:37,) the sailors considered Diagoras of Melos the cause of the storm which overtook them because he was an atheist, and hid betrayed the Eleusinian mysteries” (Morgenland, vol. 4, p. 39).