Text -- Acts 27:39-44 (NET)

Paul is Shipwrecked

27:39 When day came, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. 27:40 So they slipped the anchors and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the linkage that bound the steering oars together. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and steered toward the beach. 27:41 But they encountered a patch of crosscurrents and ran the ship aground; the bow stuck fast and could not be moved, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the waves. 27:42 Now the soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners so that none of them would escape by swimming away. 27:43 But the centurion, wanting to save Paul’s life, prevented them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land, 27:44 and the rest were to follow, some on planks and some on pieces of the ship. And in this way all were brought safely to land.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Act 27:39

¹ tn Or “observed,” “saw.”

² tn Or “gulf” (BDAG 557 s.v. κόλπος 3).

³ sn A beach would refer to a smooth sandy beach suitable for landing.

NET Notes: Act 27:40

¹ tn That is, released. Grk “slipping…leaving.” The participles περιελόντες (perielonte") and εἴων (eiwn) have been translated as finite verbs due to requirements of contemporary English style.

² tn The term is used of a ship’s anchor. (BDAG 12 s.v. ἄγκυρα a).

³ tn Grk “bands”; possibly “ropes.”

⁴ tn Or “rudders.”

⁵ tn Grk “hoisting…they.” The participle ἐπάραντες (eparante") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

⁶ tn Grk “sail”; probably a reference to the foresail.

⁷ tn BDAG 533 s.v. κατέχω 7 states, “hold course, nautical t.t., intr….κατεῖχον εἰς τὸν αἰγιαλόν they headed for the beach Ac 27:40.”

NET Notes: Act 27:41

¹ tn Grk “fell upon a place of two seas.” The most common explanation for this term is that it refers to a reef or sandbar with the sea on both sides, as noted in BDAG 245 s.v. διθάλασσος: the “τόπος δ. Ac 27:41 is a semantic unit signifying a point (of land jutting out with water on both sides).” However, Greek had terms for a “sandbank” (θῖς [qis], ταινία [tainia]), a “reef” (ἑρμα [Jerma]), “strait” (στενόν [stenon]), “promontory” (ἀρωτήρον [arwthron]), and other nautical hazards, none of which are used by the author here. NEB here translates τόπον διθάλασσον (topon diqalasson) as “cross-currents,” a proposal close to that advanced by J. M. Gilchrist, “The Historicity of Paul’s Shipwreck,” JSNT 61 (1996): 29-51, who suggests the meaning is “a patch of cross-seas,” where the waves are set at an angle to the wind, a particular hazard for sailors. Thus the term most likely refers to some sort of adverse sea conditions rather than a topographical feature like a reef or sandbar.

² tn Or “violence” (BDAG 175 s.v. βία a).

NET Notes: Act 27:42

¹ sn The soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners. The issue here was not cruelty, but that the soldiers would be legally responsible if any prisoners escaped and would suffer punishment themselves. So they were planning to do this as an act of self-preservation. See Acts 16:27 for a similar incident.

² tn The participle ἐκκολυμβήσας (ekkolumbhsa") has been taken instrumentally.

NET Notes: Act 27:43

¹ sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.

² tn Or “wanting to rescue Paul.”

sn Thanks to the centurion who wanted to save Paul’s life, Paul was once more rescued from a potential human threat.

³ tn BDAG 347 s.v. I. ἔξειμι has “ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν get to land Ac 27:43.”

NET Notes: Act 27:44

¹ tn The words “were to follow” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. They must be supplied to clarify the sense in contemporary English.

² tn Or “boards” according to BDAG 913 s.v. σανίς.

³ tn Grk “on pieces from the ship”; that is, pieces of wreckage from the ship.

sn Both the planks and pieces of the ship were for the weak or nonswimmers. The whole scene is a historical metaphor representing how listening to Paul and his message could save people.

⁴ tn Grk “And in this way it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.