Jonah 3:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Let neither man nor beast—taste any thing— This was carrying their abstinence to a greater severity than what we find practised among the Jews; for though in times of public calamity, and on the day of solemn expiation, we find that they made their children fast, as we may gather from Joel 2:16.; yet we nowhere read of their extending that rigour to their cattle. Virgil indeed, in his fifth eclogue, brings in a shepherd telling his companion, that for the death of Julius Caesar the mourning was so general, that even the sheep and other creatures were not driven to water: but possibly this may be looked upon as a poetical exaggeration. From Homer and other ancient authors we learn, that when any hero or great warrior died, the custom was, to make his horses fast for some time, and to cut off part of their hair: and we are told by the historians, that the people inhabiting the Canaries and Peru, in times of great drought, shut up their sheep and goats, without giving them any thing to eat, upon a presumption that their loud cries and bleating would reach heaven, and prevail with the Supreme Being to give them rain.