Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER XXVII.
PAUL’S VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK.
1-44. Fortunately Paul is committed to the Roman centurion Julius of the imperial cohort, who,
in the finale also shows up a very beautiful character for gentility, so yielding to the Holy Spirit and
to God’s Providence as to become the staunch friend and protector of his Apostolical prisoner.
2. Adramyttium is a Mysian port on the Mediterranean, one of whose ships enjoys the first honor
of carrying the Rome-bound trio, Paul, Aristarchus and Luke.
3. Sidon is an old Tyrian maritime city celebrated in the days of the prophets along with Tyre for
magnificence, wealth and commercial enterprise. At this first stop, as well as throughout the voyage,
we see the peculiar kindness of Julius to Paul.
4, 5. They now avail themselves of the island Cyprus as a wind-break, sailing up near the western
coast of Asia, landing again in the harbor, Myra of Lycia, where they finally disembark from the ship
on which they had sailed.
6, 7. At that time Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the greatest mercantile cities in the world; at the
mouth of the Nile valley, the most productive country on the globe, it becomes the emporium
whence vast quantities of wheat are shipped to Rome. Hence Egypt was pronounced the granary of
Rome. So here Julius, finding an Alexandrian corn-ship bound for Rome, embarks with all of his
prisoners. Cnidus is a peninsula at the entrance of the Ægean Sea between the islands of Cos and
Rhodes, around which the ship is awfully impeded in her passage because of contrary winds. After
many days of slow and toilsome progress they have succeeded in reaching the island of Crete
opposite the city of Salmone, endeavoring to sail round on the north side of it, using it as a protection
from the winds.
8-10. They seemed to have embarked from Cæsarea in August, A.D. 58. Without steam-engines
and mariner’s compass, subject to all the caprices and mutations of winds and tides, navigation was
regarded as very unsafe after the autumnal equinox, celebrated by the Jews in a fast. Now, having
been so detained by contrary winds, they have been caught out in the winter, the equinox having
already passed, and Paul avails himself of God’s gift of prophecy to warn them against departing
from the harbor called Fair Havens, in the island of Crete, assuring them of great perils and loss
awaiting them.
11. Julius thinks the pilot and captain certainly understood navigation better than a preacher
utterly ignorant of nautical science. Therefore, he followed their advice rather than the prophetic
warnings of Paul, the pilot and captain suffering utter bankruptcy in the wrecking of the ship, and
miraculously escaping with their lives.