The fourteenth night - From the time when the tempest commenced.

In Adria - In the Adriatic Sea. This sea is situated between Italy and Dalmatia, now called the Adriatic Gulf. But among the ancients the name was given not only to that gulf, but to the whole sea lying between Greece, Italy, and Africa, including the Sicilian and Ionian Sea. It is evident from the narrative that they were not in the Adriatic Gulf, but in the vicinity of Malta.

Deemed - Judged. Probably by the appearance of the sea.

Driven up and down in Adria - See the note on Acts 27:17.

Deemed that they drew near to some country - They judged so, either by the smell of land, which those used to the sea can perceive at a considerable distance, or by the agitation of the sea, rippling of the tide, flight of sea-birds, etc.

But when the fourteenth night was come,.... From their setting out from the Fair Havens in Crete, or from the beginning of the storm:

as they were driven up and down in Adria: or "in the Adriatic sea", as the Syriac version renders it: the Adriatic sea is now called by the Turks the gulf of Venice, and the straits of Venice, and sometimes the Venetian sea (i); but formerly the Adriatic sea included more than the Venetian gulf; it took in the Ionian and Sicilian seas, and had its name from the city Adria, a colony of the Tuscans (k). It is called by Ptolomy (l) Hadria, and reckoned a city of the Picenes. Pliny (m) places it near the river Padus, and calls it Atriae, a town of the Tuscans, which had a famous port, from whence the sea was before called Atriatic, which is now Adriatic. Adria, Justin (n) says, which is near to the Illyrian sea, and gave name to the Adriatic sea, is a Grecian city; and from this place the ancestors of Adrian, the Roman emperor, originally came; and all the sea between Illyricum and Italy is called the Adriatic; and from the beginning of it, which is at the city of Venice, unto Garganus, a mountain in Italy, and Dyrrachium, a city of Macedonia, it is 600 miles in length, and its largest breadth is 200, and the least 150, and the mouth of it 60. The other part of the sea, which washes Macedonia and Epirus, is called the Ionian sea. Moreover, this whole sea is called the superior sea, with respect to the Tyrrhenian, which dashes the other shore of Italy, and is called the inferior (o). In this same sea, Josephus (p), the historian, was shipwrecked as he was on a voyage to Rome: his account is this;

"I came to Rome, having gone through many dangers by sea, for our ship being sunk in the middle of Adria, being in number about six hundred, we swam all night; and about break of day, by the providence of God, a ship of Cyrene appeared to us, in which I, and some others, in all eighty, getting before the rest, were received into it, and so got safe to Dicearchia, which the Italians call Puteoli;''

a place afterwards mentioned, where the apostle also arrived. And the sea itself is often, by the poets (q) called Adria, as here, and is represented as a very troublesome sea; and here Paul, and the ship's company, were driven to and fro by the storm,

when about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country: about the middle of the night the mariners thought, by some observations they made, that they were nigh land; or, as it is in the Greek text, "that some country drew near to them"; which well agrees with the language and sense of seafaring persons, to whose sight the land seems to draw near them, or depart from them, when they draw near, or depart from that: the Ethiopic version is, "they thought they should have seen a city"; they had a notion of some city near; and the Arabic version, "they thought to know in what country, or place" they were; and therefore did as follows.

(i) Hyde not. in Peritzol. Itinera Mundi, p. 53, 54. (k) Alex. ab. Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 3. c. 28. (l) Geograph. l. 3. c. 1.((m) Nat. Hist. l. 3. c. 16. (n) Hist ex Trogo, l. 20. c. 1.((o) Pausanias, Eliac. 1. sive, l. 5. p. 337. (p) In Vita sua, sect. 3. p. 905. (q) Horat. Carnin. l. 1. ode 3. & l. 3. ode. 3. 9. Ovid. Trist, l. 1, eleg. 11.

Adria

The Adriatic Sea: embracing all that part of the Mediterranean lying south of Italy, east of Sicily, and west of Greece.

Deemed (ὑπενόουν)

Better, as Rev., suspected or surmised.

That they drew near to some country

Lit., that some land is drawing near to them.

{7} But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in {e} Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed {f} that they drew near to some country;

(7) We attain and come to the promised and sure salvation through the midst of tempests and death itself.

(e) For Ptolemy writes that the Adriatic Sea beats upon the east shore of Cecilia.

(f) Or, some country drew near to them.

27:27 Driven up and down in Adria. The central basin of the Mediterranean, between Sicily on the west and Greece on the east, was called by the old geographers Adria, or the Adriatic Sea. The name is now confined to the Gulf of Venice.

The shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country. They probably heard the awful roar of the breakers.

27:27 The fourteenth night - Since they left Crete, Acts 27:18,19. In the Adriatic sea - So the ancients called all that part of the Mediterranean, which lay south of Italy.

27-29. when the fourteenth night was come-from the time they left Fair Havens.

as we were driven-drifting

up and down in Adria-the Adriatic, that sea which lies between Greece and Italy.

about midnight the shipmen deemed-no doubt from the peculiar sound of the breakers.

that they drew near some country-"that some land was approaching them." This nautical language gives a graphic character to the narrative.

27:21-29 They did not hearken to the apostle when he warned them of their danger; yet if they acknowledge their folly, and repent of it, he will speak comfort and relief to them when in danger. Most people bring themselves into trouble, because they do not know when they are well off; they come to harm and loss by aiming to mend their condition, often against advice. Observe the solemn profession Paul made of relation to God. No storms or tempests can hinder God's favour to his people, for he is a Help always at hand. It is a comfort to the faithful servants of God when in difficulties, that as long as the Lord has any work for them to do, their lives shall be prolonged. If Paul had thrust himself needlessly into bad company, he might justly have been cast away with them; but God calling him into it, they are preserved with him. They are given thee; there is no greater satisfaction to a good man than to know he is a public blessing. He comforts them with the same comforts wherewith he himself was comforted. God is ever faithful, therefore let all who have an interest in his promises be ever cheerful. As, with God, saying and doing are not two things, believing and enjoying should not be so with us. Hope is an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast, entering into that within the veil. Let those who are in spiritual darkness hold fast by that, and think not of putting to sea again, but abide by Christ, and wait till the day break, and the shadows flee away.