Acts 27:20

27:20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and a violent ¹  storm continued to batter us, ²  we finally abandoned all hope of being saved. ³ 

Acts 27:41-44

27:41 But they encountered a patch of crosscurrents ⁴  and ran the ship aground; the bow stuck fast and could not be moved, but the stern was being broken up by the force ⁵  of the waves. 27:42 Now the soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners ⁶  so that none of them would escape by swimming away. ⁷  27:43 But the centurion, ⁸  wanting to save Paul’s life, ⁹  prevented them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land, ¹⁰  27:44 and the rest were to follow, ¹¹  some on planks ¹²  and some on pieces of the ship. ¹³  And in this way ¹⁴  all were brought safely to land.

[27:20]  ¹ tn Grk “no small storm” = a very great storm.

[27:20]  ² tn Grk “no small storm pressing on us.” The genitive absolute construction with the participle ἐπικειμένου (epikeimenou) has been translated as parallel to the previous genitive absolute construction (which was translated as temporal). BDAG 373 s.v. ἐπίκειμαι 2.b states, “of impersonal force confront χειμῶνος ἐπικειμένου since a storm lay upon us Ac 27:20.” L&N 14.2, “‘the stormy weather did not abate in the least’ or ‘the violent storm continued’ Ac 27:20.” To this last was added the idea of “battering” from the notion of “pressing upon” inherent in ἐπίκειμαι (epikeimai).

[27:20]  ³ tn Grk “finally all hope that we would be saved was abandoned.” The passive construction has been converted to an active one to simplify the translation. This represents a clearly secular use of the term σῴζω (swzw) in that it refers to deliverance from the storm. At this point those on board the ship gave up hope of survival.

[27:41]  ⁴ 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.

[27:41]  ⁵ tn Or “violence” (BDAG 175 s.v. βία a).

[27:42]  ⁶ 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.

[27:42]  ⁷ tn The participle ἐκκολυμβήσας (ekkolumbhsa") has been taken instrumentally.

[27:43]  ⁸ sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.

[27:43]  ⁹ tn Or “wanting to rescue Paul.”

[27:43]  ¹⁰ tn BDAG 347 s.v. I. ἔξειμι has “ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν get to land Ac 27:43.”

[27:44]  ¹¹ 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.

[27:44]  ¹² tn Or “boards” according to BDAG 913 s.v. σανίς.

[27:44]  ¹³ tn Grk “on pieces from the ship”; that is, pieces of wreckage from the ship.

[27:44]  ¹⁴ 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.