Acts 27

CHAPTER 27Ac 27:1-44. The Voyage to Italy—The Shipwreck and Safe Landing at Malta.1. we should sail, &c.—The "we" here reintroduces the historian as one of the company. Not that he had left the apostle from the time when he last included himself (Ac 21:18), but the apostle was parted from him by his arrest and imprisonment, until now, when they met in the ship.delivered Paul and certain other prisoners—State prisoners going to be tried at Rome; of which several instances are on record.Julius—who treats the apostle throughout with such marked courtesy (Ac 27:3, 43; Ac 28:16), that it has been thought [Bengel] he was present when Paul made his defense before Agrippa (see Ac 25:23), and was impressed with his lofty bearing.a centurion of Augustus' band—the Augustan cohort, an honorary title given to more than one legion of the Roman army, implying, perhaps, that they acted as a bodyguard to the emperor or procurator, as occasion required.

"\nAnd entering into a ship of Adramyttium,.... Which was in the port of Caesarea; for from thence they set sail to the place where this ship was bound, which very likely was the place here mentioned; there was a city of this name in Africa, and which was built upon the sea shore, and is sometimes called Hadrumentum {g}, as this is called Adramantos, in the Syriac version; and in the Alexandrian copy, and in another manuscript, "a ship of Adramyntum"; it is mentioned with Carthage, a city in Africa, by Pliny {h} and Solinus {i}; the one calls it Adrumetum, and the other Adrymeto; and the latter says, that it, as well as Carthage, was built by the people of Tyre; and so Sallust {k} says, that the Phoenicians built Hippo, Adrumetum, Leptis, and other cities on the sea coast; and the name seems to be a Phoenician name,\n\u05d7\u05d3\u05e8\u05de\u05d5\u05ea "Hadarmuth", which signifies "the court of death"; perhaps it might be so called, either from the badness of the air in which it was, or the dangerousness of its haven: Jerom calls it Hadrumetus, and says {l} it is a city in Byzacium, a country in Africa; he seems to design another place, the metropolis of the Byzacian country, the most fruitful of all the parts of Africa, and which in the Phoenician language was \u05d4\u05d3\u05e8\u05de\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea "Hadarmeoth"; which signifies "the court of a hundred"; that is, it was a place so fruitful that it brought forth an hundred fold; and agreeably to which is what Pliny says {m}, they are called Libyphoenicians, who inhabit Byzacium, a country so named, in circuit two hundred and fifty miles, and of such great fruitfulness that the land returns to the husbandmen an hundred fold. The former of these is most likely to be the place here meant; and though we nowhere read of the apostle being here, nor of the Gospel being preached here in the early times of Christianity; yet in the "fourth" century there was a church in this place, and Philologus was bishop of it, who subscribed at a council held at Carthage in this century; and in the "fifth" century we read of several bishops of this place, as Aurelius, who was in the Chalcedon council, Flavianus in that at Ephesus, which was reckoned an infamous one, and Helladius, who was in the first Ephesine council, and Felix, who was banished by Gensericus {n}. There was another city of the same name in Aeolia, or Mysia {o}, and which was formerly called Pedasus, and since Landermiti, and was a seaport, and bids fair to be the place here intended; though since there was an island of Lycia called Adramitis {p}, now Audromety, and it was at Myra, a city of Lycia, where this ship stopped, Ac 27:5 and where the passengers changed their ship, this seems most likely to be designed:\n\nwe launched; in the said ship from Caesarea:\n\nmeaning to sail by the coast of Asia; the lesser Asia, along by Ephesus and Miletus, as they did; for in this last place, as before observed, Trophimus was left sick; the Alexandrian copy reads,\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 "that was about to sail"; that is, the ship of Adramyttium was about to sail, or just ready to sail by the coast of Asia, wherefore the company entered, and set forth in it on their voyage:\n\none Aristarchus a Macedonian, of Thessalonica, being with us; the same person that was with the apostle at Ephesus, and accompanied him into Asia, Ac 19:29 the same went through with him to Rome, and became his fellowlabourer, and fellow prisoner there, Phm 1:24 Col 4:10.\n\n{g} Mela, l. 1. c. 7. {h} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 34. {i} Polyhistor. c. 40. {k} Bellum Jugurth. p. 52. {l} De locis Hebraicis, fol. 96. B. {m} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 4. {n} Magdeburg. Eccl. Hist. cent. 4. c. 9. p. 496, 497. cent. 5. c. 10. p. 648. {o} Plin. l. 5. c. 30. Ptolom. l. 5. c. 2. Mela. l. 1. c. 18. Pausan. Messenica sive l. 4. p. 268. Herodot. l. 7. c. 42. {p} Stephanus de urbibus.\n\n\n "

27:1-11 It was determined by the counsel of God, before it was determined by the counsel of Festus, that Paul should go to Rome; for God had work for him to do there. The course they steered, and the places they touched at, are here set down. And God here encourages those who suffer for him, to trust in him; for he can put it into the hearts of those to befriend them, from whom they least expect it. Sailors must make the best of the wind: and so must we all in our passage over the ocean of this world. When the winds are contrary, yet we must be getting forward as well as we can. Many who are not driven backward by cross providences, do not get forward by favourable providences. And many real Christians complain as to the concerns of their souls, that they have much ado to keep their ground. Every fair haven is not a safe haven. Many show respect to good ministers, who will not take their advice. But the event will convince sinners of the vanity of their hopes, and the folly of their conduct.