Right up to daybreak, Paul kept urging them all to eat: “Today is your fourteenth day in constant suspense, without taking any food.
33. And when the day began. Whatsoever the mariners think, Paul’s faith doth not quail; “Vacillat,” waver. but he leaneth steadfastly to the promise which was made to him. For he doth not only exhort them to take meat, as did he who, in extreme despair, uttered these words, Dine, soldiers, we shall sup in hell; “Apud inferos,” with the dead.
We have here the issue of the distress of Paul and his fellow-travellers; they escaped with their lives and that was all, and that was for Paul's sake. We are here told (Act 27:37) what number there were on board - mariners, merchants, soldiers, prisoners, and other passengers, in all two hundred and seventy-six souls; this is taken notice of to make us the more...
Commenting on Acts 27:21-44
Wherefore I pray you to take some meat,.... To sit down composedly, and eat meat cheerfully and freely: for this is for your health; the Alexandrian copy reads, "for our health"; it was for the health of them all, that they might be better able to bear the shock and fatigue of the shipwreck, and be in better spirits, and in a better capacity to...