Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 27:16

ὑποδραμόντες : “and running under the lee of a small island,” R.V.J. Smith calls attention to the nautical accuracy of St. Luke's terms; they ran before the wind to leeward of Cauda; ὑποδραμ., they sailed with a side wind to leeward of Cyprus and Crete, ὑπεπλεύσαμεν, Acts 27:4, see also Ramsay, Saint Paul, p. 328, to the same effect; here was calmer water, and the island (see below) would afford them a refuge for a time from the gale. Breusing, pp. 167, 168, 181, thinks that the great sail had been struck at once, and that the artemon or small foresail was kept up as a storm sail; otherwise the ship would have been simply the plaything of the waves. But Ramsay and others (see Farrar) think, on the contrary, that the one huge sail, in comparison with which all others were of little importance, was kept up, but that the strain of this great sail on the single mast was more than the hull could sustain; the timbers would have started, and the ship foundered, had she not gained the smooth water to the lee of Cauda. μόλις ἰσχύσ.: “we were able with difficulty to secure the boat,” R.V., the boat had not been hauled in, as the storm was so sudden; and now as it was nearly filled with water, and battered by the waves and storm, it was hard work to haul it in at all (J. Smith), as Luke himself experienced (pressed into this service of hauling in the boat; note first person, Hackett, Ramsay, p. 327); clearly they could not afford to lose such a means of safety; even as it was, the boat was dragging along as a heavy weight retarding the ship (Breusing, p. 169). περικ., cf. Susannah, v er. 39, A, for ἐγκρατεῖς in. σκάφης : a small boat towed behind, only in this passage in N.T., cf. Acts 27:30; Acts 27:32, Latin, scapha; Cic., De Invent., ii., 51 (Humphry). Κλαύδην, see critical note, an island twenty-three miles from Crete, nearly due south of Phœnice. Ramsay (but see on the other hand Wendt, p. 408, 1899) maintains that preference be given to the forms of the name in which the letter [416] is omitted, cf. the modern Gavdho in Greek, and Gozzo in Italian; not to be confounded with Gozzo near Malta (Renan, Saint Paul, p. 551), and see further on its present name, J. Smith, pp. 95, 259, 4th edition.

[416] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 27:16

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