Acts 27:41

τῶν κυμάτων omitted with אAB. Vulg. has ‘a vi maris.’

41. περιπεσόντες δὲ εἰς τόπον διθάλασσον, but lighting upon a place where two seas met. This is one of the features of the narrative by which the locality can almost certainly be identified. The little island of Salmonetta forms with the Maltese coast near St Paul’s Bay exactly such a position as is here described. From the sea at a little distance it appears as though the land were all continuous, and the current between the island and the mainland is only discovered on a nearer approach. This current by its deposits has raised a mudbank where its force is broken by the opposing sea, and into this bank, just at the place where the current meets the sea-waves, was the ship driven, the force of the water preventing the vessel from reaching the beach just beyond. So it came to pass that though they got much nearer to the shore than at first, yet after all they had to swim for their lives.

ἐπέκειλαν τὴν ναῦν, they ran the ship aground. ἐπικέλλω is found in Homer and Apoll. Rhodius, but ἐποκέλλω is a more common word, and so in time came to be substituted for the text of the oldest MSS.

ἡ δὲ πρύμνα ἐλύετο, but the stern began to break up. This is the force of the imperfect tense. When the foreship was immoveable, the stern would also be held fast, and so be acted on by the waves with great violence and begin to go to pieces.