Acts 27:15 - Exposition

Face the wind for bear up into the wind, A.V.; gave way to it, and were driven for let her drive, A.V. Was caught ; συναρπασθέντος , only here in this sense of being caught and carried away by the gale, but used in three other places by St. Luke (and only by him), viz. Luke 8:29 ; Acts 6:12 ; Acts 19:29 . It is found more than once in the LXX ., and is common in classical Greek. Sophocles uses it of a storm which carries everything away, πάντα ξυναρπάσας θύελλ ὅπως . Face ; ἀντοφθαλμεῖν , only here in the New Testament; but in Polybius and elsewhere it is said or' looking any one in the face with defiance. And so Wis. 12:14; Ecclesiasticus 19:5 (Complut. Edit.), ἀντοφθαλμῶν ἡδονᾶις , "resisteth pleasures," A.V. Compare the phrase, "looked one another in the face" ( 2 Kings 14:8 , 2 Kings 14:11 , ὤφθησαν προσώποις ) . Hence here it means simply "resist," or "stand against," or, as well rendered in the R.V., "face." Gave way to it, etc.; ἐπιδόντες ἐφερόμεθα , a rather obscure phrase, but best explained "giving her" (the ship) to the wind, "we were carried" rapidly before it. ἑπιδίδωμι , is to give, to give up, to give into any one's hand ( Luke 4:17 ; Acts 15:30 ). ἐπιδόντες is opposed to ἀντοφθαλμεῖν , giving up to, abandoning her to, as opposed to resisting. ἐφερόμεθα , we were hurried along before the wind, without will or choice of our own (as verse 17). Common in Homer and other classical writers, for being borne along by wind, or waves, or storm, etc. (For the application of φέρομαι in the middle voice to a wind, see Acts 2:2 .)