In the time of Isaiah the Mule was evidently in common use as a riding animal for persons of distinction. See chap. lxvi. 20: "And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain Jerusalem." Another allusion to the Mule as one of the recognised domesticated animals is found in Zech. xiv. 15: "So shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague." The value of these animals may be inferred from the anxiety of Ahab to preserve his Mules during the long drought that had destroyed all the pasturage. "Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts." Now this Obadiah was a very great man. He was governor of the king's palace, an office which has been compared to that of our Lord High Chamberlain. He possessed such influence that, although he was known to be a worshipper of Jehovah, and to have saved a hundred prophets during Jezebel's persecution, he retained his position, either because no one dared to inform against him, or because he was too powerful to be attacked. Yet to Obadiah was assigned the joint office of seeking for pasturage for the Mules, the king himself sharing the task with his chamberlain, thus showing the exceeding value which must have been set on these appanages of royal state. Their importance may be gathered from a passage in the Book of Ezra, in which, after enumerating with curious minuteness the number of the Jews who returned home from their Babylonish captivity, the sacred chronicler proceeds to remark that "their horses were seven hundred thirty and six; their mules, two hundred forty and five; their camels, four hundred thirty and five; their asses, six thousand seven hundred and twenty" (Ezra ii. 66, 67). There is a parallel passage in Neh. vii. 68, 69. Seeing that the Mule was in such constant use as a riding animal, it is somewhat remarkable that we never find in the Scripture any mention of the obstinate disposition which is proverbially associated with the animal. There is only one passage which can be thought even to bear upon such a subject, and that is the familiar sentence from Ps. xxxii. 9: "Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee;" and, as the reader will see, no particular obstinacy or frowardness is attributed to the Mule which is not ascribed to the horse also.