Acts 28:5-6

And he shook off, &c. Greek, αποτιναξας το θηριον, having shaken off the venomous animal into the fire, (the power of Christ interposing to preserve him,) he felt no harm Received no injury, and took no further notice of what had happened. Howbeit, they looked when he should have swollen The islanders, knowing that the bite of a viper was wont to occasion a sudden and painful death, expected the venom left in Paul's flesh would have caused a burning and swelling, and that he would instantly have fallen down dead. But Christ now fulfilled in Paul the promise made to his disciples, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. But after they had looked a great while Expecting every moment the pernicious effects of the venom to appear, to their astonishment they saw no harm come to him God hereby intended to make him remarkable among this barbarous people, and so to prepare the way for their receiving the doctrine of salvation from his lips: they changed their minds, and said that he was a god Some deity, descended in a human form; supposing that no less power than that of a god could ward off so extreme a danger. Such is the stability of human reason! A little before he was a murderer; and presently he is a god! Just like the people of Lystra; one hour sacrificing to this same apostle, and the next stoning him. Nay, but there is a medium: he is neither a murderer nor a god, but a man of God. But natural men never run into greater mistakes than in judging of the children of God. Grotius, Whitby, and some others, think that these Melitese took Paul for Hercules, Αλεξικακος, (the driver away of evil,) who was worshipped in this island, and was, according to Ptolemy, one of the gods of the Phenicians.