(33) Paul besought them all to take meat.--Better, to take food; and so in the next verse. Once again the practical insight of the Apostle--yet more, perhaps, his kindly human sympathy--comes prominently forward. Soldiers and sailors needed something that would draw them together after the incident just narrated. All were liable at once to the despair and the irritability caused by exhaustion.

That ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.--Better, that ye continue on the look-out, without a meal, taking no extra food. The English somewhat exaggerates the force of the Greek. The word for "fasting" is not that which is commonly used in the New Testament to express entire abstinence from food. It was physically impossible that the two hundred and seventy-six who were on board could have gone on for fourteen days without any food at all. Scanty rations had, we must believe, been doled out to those who came for them; but the tension of suspense was so great that they had not sat down to any regular meal. They had taken, as the last word implies, nothing beyond what was absolutely necessary to keep body and soul together. What they wanted physically was food, and morally, the sense of restored companionship; and to this St. Paul's advice led them.

Verse 33. - Some food for meat, A.V.; wait and continue for have tarried and continued, A.V. All; including the treacherous sailors whose plot he had just defeated. Having taken nothing; not meaning that they had literally been fourteen days without tasting food, which is impossible; but that they had no regular meals, only snatching a mouthful now and then in the midst of their incessant toil.

27:30-38 God, who appointed the end, that they should be saved, appointed the means, that they should be saved by the help of these shipmen. Duty is ours, events are God's; we do not trust God, but tempt him, when we say we put ourselves under his protection, if we do not use proper means, such as are within our power, for our safety. But how selfish are men in general, often even ready to seek their own safety by the destruction of others! Happy those who have such a one as Paul in their company, who not only had intercourse with Heaven, but was of an enlivening spirit to those about him. The sorrow of the world works death, while joy in God is life and peace in the greatest distresses and dangers. The comfort of God's promises can only be ours by believing dependence on him, to fulfil his word to us; and the salvation he reveals must be waited for in use of the means he appoints. If God has chosen us to salvation, he has also appointed that we shall obtain it by repentance, faith, prayer, and persevering obedience; it is fatal presumption to expect it in any other way. It is an encouragement to people to commit themselves to Christ as their Saviour, when those who invite them, clearly show that they do so themselves.And while the day was coming on,.... Between midnight and break of day: Paul besought them all to take meat; to sit down and eat a meal together:

saying, this day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried; or have been waiting for, or expecting; that is, as the Arabic version expresses it, a shipwreck; for fourteen days past, ever since the storm begun, they had expected nothing but shipwreck and death:

and continued fasting, having taken nothing: not that they had neither ate nor drank all that while, for without a miracle they could never have lived so long without eating something; but the meaning is, they had not eaten anyone regular meal all that while, had only caught up a bit now and then, and ate it, and that but very little.