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

12. The most of the people concluded they had better reach the harbor Phenice, of the same island,
looking down the southwest and northwest winds, believing it to be more secure than Fair Havens.
13. Therefore, awaiting their opportunity, when the south wind was blowing, thus to leave the
dangerous shore and get out into the deep, “raising sails and anchor,” they continued to sail along
near Crete.
14. Not long afterward a typhoonic wind, called uraquillo, set in against them. The wind had been
from the west much of the time since their voyage, and then from the south. Now this awful tempest
sets against them from the northeast. The E.V. calls it euroclydon, from euros, “the east wind,” and
kludoon, “a wave.” This is a mistake. A wind directly from the east would have dashed them quickly
against the mainland of Greece, as Crete is but a short distance. The word is “euraquillo,” from
euros, “the east wind,” and aquilo, “the north wind,” hence it means “the northeast wind,” which
is in perfect harmony with the facts in the case, as it drove them directly to the west of Malta.
15. “And the ship, being caught and unable to resist the wind, surrendering, we were carried
along.” The tornado was so awful as to prove utterly irresistible. I was in a storm on the Atlantic
Ocean five days and nights, aboard a great German steamer with thirty-six boilers, shooting through
mountain seas like an arrow.
16. “And running under a certain island called Clauda,” i.e., on the windward side of the island,
in order to protect them from the awful violence of the storm, “we were scarcely able to get
possession of the boat,” i.e., to get the boat up into the ship, as they had but one, and that their only
hope in case of a wreck.
17. “Which lifting up, they use helps, undergirding the ship,” i.e., under the temporary protection
of the island Clauda, with the greatest effort and peril they manage to get ropes around the ship, tying
it up tight, lest it break all to pieces in the violence of the storm. During the storm above mentioned
on the Atlantic Ocean our ship would crack loud as thunder, impressing me that she was breaking
in two in the middle. “Fearing lest they may fall into quicksands, lowering the gear, they were thus
borne along,
18. “And we being violently tossed by the tempest, forthwith they were making the casting-out,
19. “And on the third day with their own hands cast out the rigging of the ship.” Luke mentions
the fact that the sailors themselves, the very ones to use the ship’s rigging, even cast it overboard
with their own hands. Why? Because they were utterly incompetent to make any use of it, and it was
only in their way and a hindrance to them.
20. “Neither sun nor stars appearing for many days, there being no small tempest on us, finally
all hope that we should be saved was taken away.” Now sailors and passengers, soldiers and officers
all alike give up in utter desperation, expecting nothing but a watery grave every minute. And why
did not the ship go down? Because she carried Paul, and his work was not finished. When John and
Charles Wesley were sent by the Episcopal Church to America to preach to the Indians, and an awful
storm on the Atlantic, lashing the spars with the billows and opening deep chasms, into which the