Acts Chapter 27 verse 27 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 27. - To and fro for up and down, A.V.; the sea of Adria for Adria, A.V.; sailors for shipmen, A.V.; surmised for deemed, A.V.; were drawing for drew, A.V. The fourteenth night, reckoned from their leaving Fair Havens (so vers. 18, 19). Driven to and fro (διαφερομένων); it is rather carried across, or along, from one end to the other. Sea of Adria. Adria, as in the A.V., is scarcely correct, as a translation of the Greek (though the Latins did call it Adria), because the nominative case in Greek is ὁ Ἀδρίας, sc. κόλπος, Adrias, the Adriatic Gulf. Ἀδρία is the name of the town near the mouth of the Po, which gave its name to the Adriatic. As regards the use of term ὁ Ἀδρίας, the Adriatic, it is used in two ways: sometimes strictly of the Gulf of Venice, the Adriatic; sometimes, chiefly in latter writers, in a much wider sense, of the whole sea between Greece and Italy, including Sicily. This last is its use here. So, too, Josephus says that he was wrecked κατὰ μέσον τὸν Ἀδρίαν, in the midst of the Adriatic, on his voyage from Caesarea to Puteoli, and was picked up by a ship from Cyrene. This implies that he used the word "Adria" in the same sense as St. Luke does (see further the appendix 5. and 6. in Smith's 'Voyage,' etc.; Conybeare and Howson, p. 343, note, and p. 350; Lewin, vol. 2. p. 198, note; Farrar, vol. 2. p. 377, note; Renan, ' St. Paul,' p. 552). Surmised that they were drawing near. Probably from hearing the waves breaking upon the Point of Koura, east of St. Paul's Bay. Υπονορω is only found in the Acts (Acts 13:25; Acts 25:18; and here); but it is used three or four times in the LXX. (Daniel, Job, Judith, Sirach), and is common in classical Greek in the sense of to "suspect, conjecture," "guess at" anything (see ὑπονοία, 1 Timothy 6:4). Were drawing near, etc.; literally, that some country (or, land) was drawing near to them. In like manner, the land is said ἀναχωρεῖν, to recede, as the vessel gets out to sea.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(27) When the fourteenth night was come.--The time is apparently reckoned from their leaving the Fair Havens. (Comp. Acts 27:18-19; Acts 27:33.)As we were driven up and down in Adria.----The name was used as including more than the Gulf of Venice, to which the name Adriatic has been confined by more recent geographers. So Ptolemy (iii. 16) speaks of the Adria as washing the south coast of the Peloponnesus and the east coast of Sicily (iii. 4). So Josephus (Life, c. 3), narrating his shipwreck, just two years after St. Paul's, on his voyage from Judaea to Puteoli, states that he was picked up by another ship sailing from Cyrene to the same port, "in the middle of Adria." The intersection of the lines of the two vessels would fall, as a glance at the map will show, within the region now mentioned by St. Luke under the same name.The shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country.--Literally, they suspected, or surmised, that a certain country was approaching them. The sound of breakers, probably the white lines of foam seen through the darkness, gave rise, we may believe, to this impression. The country which they were nearing could hardly be any other than the head-land known as the Point of Koura, at the east extremity of St. Paul's, Bay, in Malta. To the Apostle the sight and the sound would alike witness that his prediction was on the point of fulfilment.