Acts 27:33

Paul besought them all to take meat. — Better, to take food; and so in the next verse. Once again the practical insight of the Apostle — yet more, perhaps, his kindly human sympathy — comes prominently forward. Soldiers and sailors needed something that would draw them together after the incident just narrated. All were liable at once to the despair and the irritability caused by exhaustion.

That ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. — Better, that ye continue on the look-out, without a meal, taking no extra food. The English somewhat exaggerates the force of the Greek. The word for “fasting” is not that which is commonly used in the New Testament to express entire abstinence from food. It was physically impossible that the two hundred and seventy-six who were on board could have gone on for fourteen days without any food at all. Scanty rations had, we must believe, been doled out to those who came for them; but the tension of suspense was so great that they had not sat down to any regular meal. They had taken, as the last word implies, nothing beyond what was absolutely necessary to keep body and soul together. What they wanted physically was food, and morally, the sense of restored companionship; and to this St. Paul’s advice led them.