And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.
And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots. God sometimes sanctioned this mode of deciding in difficult cases Compare the similar instance of Achan, whose guilt involved Israel in suffering, until God revealed the offender, probably by the casting of lots (Proverbs 16:33, "The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord;" Acts 1:26, "They (the disciples) gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias: and he was numbered with the eleven apostles"). Primitive tradition and natural conscience led even the pagan to believe that one guilty man involves all his associates, though innocent, in punishment. So Cicero ('Natura Deorum,' 3: 37) mentions that the mariners sailing with Diagoris, an atheist, attributed a storm that overtook them to his presence in the ship. [Compare Horace's 'Odes,' 3: 2, 26:
`Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum Vulgarit arcanae, sub isdem, Sit trabibus, fragilem ve mecum Solvat faselum.']