Acts 27:33

And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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.

Benson Commentary

Acts 27:33-38. While the day was coming on — Before they had light sufficient to discern what they should do; Paul besought them all to take meat — To take some refreshment; saying, This is the fourteenth day that ye continue fasting — Not as if they had absolutely eaten nothing all that while; for it is generally allowed that none can fast half so long without danger of death; having taken nothing — No regular meal; through a deep sense of your extreme danger: the necessary consequence of which is, that you must be very faint and weak, and unfit for those exertions and fatigues which may farther lie before you; for it will be a narrow escape that we are to expect, and we may find great difficulties in getting on shore. If a sense of the great danger they were in took away all their desire for food, let us not wonder if men who have a deep sense of the danger they are in of everlasting death should, for a time, forget either to take food, or to attend to their worldly affairs. Much less let us censure that as madness which may be the beginning of true wisdom. Wherefore — Since till the morning rises we can attempt nothing by way of approach to land; I pray — Παρακαλω, I exhort; you to take τροφης, nourishment, for this is — Προς της υμετερας σωτηριας, for your preservation, that ye may be the better able to swim to shore; for there shall not a hair, &c. — A proverbial expression, assuring them of entire safety. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks — For that provision which God now gave them in their necessities, and for the assurance of life with which he had favoured them by so particular a revelation; and when he had broken it, he began to eat — Thus setting them an example. Then were they all of good cheer — Encouraged by his example as well as words; and they also took some meat — As he had done. And when they had eaten enough — As much as was sufficient for their present refreshment and support; they lightened the ship — Still more than they had done; and cast out the wheat — The very stores they had on board; into the sea — So firmly did they now depend on what Paul had said.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:30-38 God, who appointed the end, that they should be saved, appointed the means, that they should be saved by the help of these shipmen. Duty is ours, events are God's; we do not trust God, but tempt him, when we say we put ourselves under his protection, if we do not use proper means, such as are within our power, for our safety. But how selfish are men in general, often even ready to seek their own safety by the destruction of others! Happy those who have such a one as Paul in their company, who not only had intercourse with Heaven, but was of an enlivening spirit to those about him. The sorrow of the world works death, while joy in God is life and peace in the greatest distresses and dangers. The comfort of God's promises can only be ours by believing dependence on him, to fulfil his word to us; and the salvation he reveals must be waited for in use of the means he appoints. If God has chosen us to salvation, he has also appointed that we shall obtain it by repentance, faith, prayer, and persevering obedience; it is fatal presumption to expect it in any other way. It is an encouragement to people to commit themselves to Christ as their Saviour, when those who invite them, clearly show that they do so themselves.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And while the day was coming on - At daybreak. It was before they had sufficient light to discern what they should do.

To take meat - Food. The word "meat" was formerly used to denote "food" of any kind.

That ye have tarried - That you have remained or been fasting.

Having taken nothing - No regular meal. It cannot mean that they had lived entirely without food, but that they had been in so much danger, were so constantly engaged, and had been so anxious about their safety, that they had taken no regular meal, or that what they had taken had been at irregular intervals, and had been a scanty allowance. "Appian speaks of an army which for 20 days together had neither food nor sleep; by which he must mean that they neither made full meals nor slept whole nights together. The same interpretation must be given to this phrase" (Doddridge). The effect of this must have been that they would be exhausted, and little able to endure the fatigues which yet remained.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

33-37. while day was coming on—"until it should be day"; that is, in the interval between the cutting off of the boat and the approach of day, which all were "anxiously looking for" (Ac 27:29).

Paul—now looked up to by all the passengers as the man to direct them.

besought them all to take meat—"partake of a meal."

saying, This is the fourteenth day ye have tarried—"waited for a breathing time."

having eaten nothing—that is, taken no regular meal. The impossibility of cooking, the occupation of all hands to keep down leakage, &c., sufficiently explain this, which is indeed a common occurrence in such cases.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

While the day was coming on; all the night after the mariners were disappointed in their project to escape. So hard a matter it was to abate their fear of being presently destroyed; and so great influence hath the apprehension of present death, and judgment which follows it, upon the minds of men.

The fourteenth day; not as if they had wholly eaten nothing all that while, (for it is commonly held, that none can fast above half so long without danger of death), but because in all that space they had held no set meal, as they were wont to do; and what they did eat was very little, and only in extreme necessity, without any desire or taste; so great was their anguish.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And while the day was coming on,.... Between midnight and break of day: Paul besought them all to take meat; to sit down and eat a meal together:

saying, this day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried; or have been waiting for, or expecting; that is, as the Arabic version expresses it, a shipwreck; for fourteen days past, ever since the storm begun, they had expected nothing but shipwreck and death:

and continued fasting, having taken nothing: not that they had neither ate nor drank all that while, for without a miracle they could never have lived so long without eating something; but the meaning is, they had not eaten anyone regular meal all that while, had only caught up a bit now and then, and ate it, and that but very little.

Geneva Study Bible

{10} And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.

(10) When the world trembles, the faithful alone are not only at peace, but strengthen and encourage others by their example.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 27:33. But now, when he had overcome this danger, it was the care of the prudent rescuer, before anything further, to see those on board strengthened for the new work of the new day by food. But until it should become day,—so long, therefore, as the darkness of the night up to the first break of dawn did not allow any ascertaining of their position or further work,—in this interval he exhorted all, etc.

τεσσαρεσκ. σήμ. ἡμέραν κ.τ.λ.] waiting (for deliverance), the fourteenth day to-day (since the departure from Fair Havens), ye continue without food. ἄσιτοι holds with διατελ. the place of a participle. See the passages in Winer, p. 326 [E. T. 437]; Krüger on Thuc. i. 34. 2, and Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 2.

μηδὲν προσλαβ.] since ye have taken to you (adhibuistis) nothing (no food). This emphatically strengthens the ἄσιτοι. That, however, the two terms are not to be understood of complete abstinence from food, but relatively, is self-evident; Paul expresses the “insolitam cibi abstinentiam” (Calvin) earnestly and forcibly. Comp. πολλῆς, Acts 27:21.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 27:33. ἄχρι δὲ οὐ: only used by Luke in the historical books of the N.T., cf. Luke 21:24, Acts 7:18; in St. Paul’s Epistles three or four times, Hebrews 3:13, Revelation 2:25. Ramsay renders “and while the day was coming on,” so A. and R.V.; dum with imperfect, Hebrews 3:13 (Blass). But Rendall takes it as = until, as if Paul had continued his entreaties until close on dawn (imperfect).—μεταλαβεῖν τροφῆς, cf. Acts 2:46 for the same phrase, only in Luke in N.T.—τεσσαρεσκ.… προσδοκῶντες κ.τ.λ.: “this is the fourteenth day that ye wait (A.V. ‘tarry,’ Ramsay, ‘watch’) and continue fasting”. Rendall renders “this is the fourteenth day that ye have continued fasting on the watch for the dawn”—προσδ. sc. ἡμέραν, as if St. Paul did not mean a fourteenth day of continuous fasting, but fourteen successive nights of anxious watching for the dawn, all alike spent in restless hungry expectation of what the day might reveal (Acts, p. 347), but προσδοκᾶν is here without an object as in Luke 3:15 (Weiss). For the word see further Acts 28:6, and cf. προσδοκία only in Acts 12:11 and Luke 21:26. On the accusative of time, as expressed here, cf. Blass, Gram., p. 93.—ἄσιτοι διατελεῖτε: precisely the same collocation of words occur in Galen, εἴ ποτε ἄσιτος διετέλεσεν, so also καὶ ἄδιψοι διατελοῦσιν, and Hippocrates speaks of a man who continued suffering πάσχων διατελέει for fourteen days (see Hobart and Zahn). It must however be admitted that the same collocation as in this verse ἄσιτοι and διατελεῖν is found in Dion. Hal. (Wetstein, in loco). For the construction see Winer-Moulton, xlv., 4; cf. Thuc., i., 34.—μηδὲν προσλ., i.e., taking no regular meal, so Weiss, Blass, Zöckler, Alford, Plumptre, Felten, Bethge, Wendt. Breusing, p. 196, and Vars, p. 250, both explain the word as meaning that in their perilous and hopeless condition those on board had not gone to fetch their regular food and rations, but had subsisted on any bits of food they might have by them; in ancient ships there were no tables spread, or waiters to bring food to the passengers, and each one who wanted refreshment must fetch it for himself. Plumptre takes πρός as meaning no extra food, only what would keep body and soul together, but it is doubtful whether the Greek will bear this or Breusing’s interpretation.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

33. while the day was coming on] Before it was light enough to see what had best be done. Here again we may notice how every means was to be employed for safety. Paul urges them to take now a proper meal that when the time for work arrives they may be in a condition to undertake it. The remaining clauses of the verse are not to be understood as implying that the fast had been entire for so long a time. Such a thing is impossible. But what the Apostle means is that the crew and passengers had taken during all that time no regular food, only snatching a morsel now and then when they were able, and that of something which had not been prepared.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 27:33. Ἄχρι) until, whilst. In the time of dawn there was more scope for lengthened exhortation.—τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην, fourteenth) Construed with προσδοκῶντες, waitlng for, expecting (relief): for they had not so long abstained from food, although perhaps they had had no regular dinner or supper. For the rest, the fourteenth day, as Wall thinks, was thought the critical [decisive of their fate] day among sailors.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 33. - Some food for meat, A.V.; wait and continue for have tarried and continued, A.V. All; including the treacherous sailors whose plot he had just defeated. Having taken nothing; not meaning that they had literally been fourteen days without tasting food, which is impossible; but that they had no regular meals, only snatching a mouthful now and then in the midst of their incessant toil. Acts 27:33

Vincent's Word Studies

While the day was coming on (ἄχρι δὲ οὗ ἔμελλεν ἡμέρα γίνεσθαι)

Lit., until it should become day: in the interval between midnight and morning.