Acts 28:3

Acts 28:3. When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks. More exactly, ‘had twisted together a large quantity of sticks.' We see the apostle here helping with his own hands to improve the fire , as we saw him before (Acts 27:19) in the storm helping with his own hands to lighten the ship by throwing ‘tackling' overboard. Another remark, too, may be permitted here. We see St. Paul ‘warming himself at a fire,' just as St. Peter did on a very different occasion (see John 18:13-25). Such incidents are part of that natural framework which gives life and reality to the biographies of the New Testament.

There came a viper out of the heat. Here we encounter another objection, similar to the preceding, against the identification of Malta. It was put forward in a very random way by Coleridge in a conversation quoted in his Table Talk. But this objection falls with the other. It is true that there are no poisonous serpents now in Malta; but with the increase of population, wood has been cleared away, and with the clearing away of wood noxious reptiles have disappeared. Mr. Smith adduces a similar experience of recent date, in the island of Arrant, and quotes from Sir C. Lyell's Principles of Geology the following sentence, written by travelers in Brazil, concerning the poisonous serpents and other dangerous animals of that country: ‘With the increasing population and cultivation of the country, these evils will gradually diminish: when the inhabitants have cut down the woods, drained the marshes, made roads in all directions, and founded villages and towns, man will, by degrees, triumph over the rank vegetation and the noxious animals.' By the expression, ‘came out of the heat,' is meant that the animal came through the bundle of sticks in consequence of being awakened into activity from a torpid state by the heat. Dr. Hackett quotes Professor Agassis as saying that such reptiles become torpid as soon as the temperature falls sensibly below the mean temperature of the place which they inhabit; also that they lurk in rocky places, and that they are accustomed to dart at their enemies sometimes several feet at a bound.

Fastened on his hand. The impression given by these words is, that St. Paul was bitten by the viper; and this, no doubt, is the true impression. We gain nothing in such a case by attenuating a miracle.