Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
they cast four anchors out of the stern—The ordinary way was to cast the anchor, as now, from the bow: but ancient ships, built with both ends alike, were fitted with hawseholes in the stern, so that in case of need they could anchor either way. And when the fear was, as here, that they might fall on the rocks to leeward, and the intention was to run the ship ashore as soon as daylight enabled them to fix upon a safe spot, the very best thing they could do was to anchor by the stern [SMITH]. In stormy weather two anchors were used, and we have instances of four being employed, as here.
and wished—"anxiously" or "devoutly wished."
for day—the remark this of one present, and with all his shipmates alive to the horrors of their condition. "The ship might go down at her anchors, or the coast to leeward might be iron-bound, affording no beach on which they could land with safety. Hence their anxious longing for day, and the ungenerous but natural attempt, not peculiar to ancient times, of the seamen to save their own lives by taking to the boat" [SMITH].
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.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Acts 27:29:
Acts 27:33-37
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