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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 27:40 - 27:40
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40. καὶ τὰς ἀγκύρας περιελόντες, and casting off the anchors. περιαιρέω indicates that they now cast loose all the anchors round about the stern of the vessel, where they had before laid them out. When they had thrown overboard a load of corn, there was no likelihood that they would trouble themselves with the weight of four anchors and the labour of hauling them up. So ‘taken up’ (of A.V.) gives a wrong idea.
εἴων εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, they left them in the sea, i.e. the anchors. They had now no use for them, so they let them go.
ἅμα ἀνέντες τὰς ζευκτηρίας τῶν πηδαλίων, at the same time loosing the rudder bands.
ζευκτηρία is found nowhere else but in this place. The rudders, of which the ancient ships had two (thus accounting for the plural number, πηδαλίων), had at first been made fast and raised out of the water, when the anchors were laid out in the stern. Now that an attempt is to be made to steer the ship toward the beach they are let down again into the sea.
καὶ ἐπάραντες τὸν ἀρτέμωνα, and having hoisted the foresail. ἀρτέμων was in old times the name given to the foresail. Cognate words are now employed as names of the larger sails of vessels in the Mediterranean. But here the foresail was all they had left. Cf. Smith’s Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul, pp. 102, 153, seqq.
τῇ πνεούσῃ, to the wind. The noun to be supplied is αὔρᾳ.
εἰς τὸν αἰγιαλόν, towards the beach, where they had resolved after consultation to try to land.