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Act_27:18-19. Ἐκβολὴν ἐποιοῦντο ] they made a casting out, i.e. they threw overboard the cargo.[173] Dem. 926. 17; Aesch. Sept. 769; Arist. Eth. iii. 1; Pollux, i. 99; LXX. Jon_1:5. For the lightening of the vessel in distress, in order to make it go less deep and to keep it from grounding, they got rid in the first instance of what could, in the circumstances, be most fitly dispensed with, namely, the cargo; but on the day after they laid hands even on the σκευὴ τοῦ πλοίου (Diod. Sic. xiv. 79), i.e. the ship’s apparatus,—the utensils belonging to the ship, as furniture, beds, cooking vessels, and the like. The same collective idea, but expressed in the plural, occurs in Jon_1:5. Others (Wetstein, Kypke, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel) understand the baggage of the passengers, but this is at variance with τοῦ πλοίου ; instead of it we should expect ἡμῶν , especially as αὐτόχειρες precedes. Following the Vulgate, Erasmus, Grotius, and many others, including Olshausen and Ewald, understand the arma navis, that is, ropes, beams, and the like belonging to the equipment of the ship. But the tackling is elsewhere called τὰ ὅπλα , or τὰ σκεύη (from σκεῦος ), and just amidst the danger this was most indispensable of all.
αὐτόχειρες ] with our own hands (Hermann, ad Soph. Ant. 1160), gives to the description a sad vividness, and does not present a contrast to the conduct of Jonah (who lay asleep, Jon_1:5), as Baumgarten in his morbid quest of types imagines.
[173] Had the ship been loaded with ballast, and this been thrown out (Laurent), we should have expected a more precise designation ( ἕρμα ). The σκευή , too, would not have been included in the category of things thrown out at once on the following day, but after the ballast would have come, in the first instance, the cargo. The ship was without doubt a merchant-vessel, and doubtless had no ballast at all. Otherwise they certainly would have commenced with throwing the latter out, but would not thereupon have at once passed to the σκευή .