Jeremiah 36:24

Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, [neither] the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.

Ver. 24. Yet they were not afraid.] Ne paulum quidem perculsi sunt. The king and his servants, those court parasites, were not stirred at all at such a Bible bonfire, but jeered when they should have feared, &c.

Nor rent their garments.] Such was their stupor seu non-curantia, their security and insensibleness of that high offence, for which their posterity keep a yearly fast. See on Jeremiah 36:6. Rending of garments in token of grief was in use also among the heathens. Homer saith Priamus rent his clothes when he heard of the death of his son Hector. The like hath Virgil of his Aeneas:

“ Tum pater Aeneas humeris abseindere vestem

Auxilioque vocare deos. ”

Suetonius a saith the like of Julius Caesar, &c.

a Pro concione fidem militum flens et veste a pectore discissa imploravit. - Suet., cap. 55.