Acts 27:27-44
My comments from last year are helpful in understanding just exactly what was going on with the ship being battered from the wind and waves.
From yesterday’s reading, Paul speaking: Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete… (v. 21b) I think many of us hate it if someone says “I told you so”, but often because they were right and we were wrong – and don’t we (…I…!!) hate to admit we’re wrong!! But in this case, Paul was right and he was speaking what he had heard from an angel of the Lord. There are only a few times in my life when I could say that I “heard” something very specific and I imputed (Ben’s word!) what I had heard as possibly being from the Lord. But I’m not Paul; Paul knew specifically that an angel of the God to whom I belong had spoken to him. And as I mentioned in my 2020 comments yesterday, Luke and Aristarchus must have been comforted, but still (I’m thinking) a bit troubled when they looked around at the wind and the waves! I would be, too!!
Verse 37 says, parenthetically “(We were in all 276 persons in the ship.)” An online footnote says that some manuscripts read “76 or about 76” instead of 276. I tend to believe the correction. Having 276 aboard would have been quite a large ship! In addition, I doubt that Paul could have had so much influence with a larger crowd. Just that.
See also: August 11 / Acts 27:27-38; August 12 / Acts 27:39-44