Because the fast was now already past,— That is, the yearly fast of atonement for the sins of the people of Israel, mentioned in many places of the Old Testament; in two or three of which places it is ordered to be kept on the tenth day of the seventh month, five days before the feast of tabernacles. Now the feast of tabernacles began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which answers to part of our September and October; this Jewish fast therefore fell about the twenty-fifth of September, and as it was now past for some time, the nights were growing long and dark, and the heavens cloudy: the Michaelmas floods were coming down upon the Mediterranean sea, and the stormy months of autumn and winter advancing. Philo in several passages speaks of this as an ill time to sail; as does also Aratus.

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