Acts 27:2 - Exposition

Embarking in for entering into, A.V. ; which was about to sail unto the places on the coasts of Asia, we put to sea for we launched, meaning to sail by the coast of Asia, A.V. and T.R.; Aristarchus for one Aristarchus, A.V. Adramyttium (now Adramyti, where ships are still built), on the north-western coast of Asia Minor, south of Troas, on the gulf opposite which lies the island of Lesbos, was a place of considerable trade, situated on the great Roman road which connected the Hellespont with Ephesus and Miletus. Which was about to sail ; μέλλοντι (not μέλλοντες , as in the T.R.), describing the ship as a coasting-vessel, trading between Adramyttium and other ports on the coast of Asia. She was now on her homeward voyage. Aristarchus . He is first mentioned in Acts 19:29 , as a Macedonian, and one of Paul's companions at Ephesus, pro-badly, therefore, the fruit of his first visit to Thessalonica. We find him again with St. Paul on his last journey from Corinth to Asia ( Acts 20:4 ), and we gather from the present notice of him that he kept with him till he arrived at Jerusalem, and followed him to Caesarea. It would appear at first sight, from Colossians 4:10 , that he not only stayed with St. Paul during his two years' imprisonment at Rome, but was his "fellow-prisoner," if at least the word συναιχμάλωτος μου is to be taken literally. This, however, is very doubtful, because in the Epistle to the Romans ( Romans 16:7 ) St. Paul calls Andronicus and Junius his "fellow-prisoners," though he was not then in prison himself; and also because, in the Epistle to Philemon (23, 24), he gives this epithet to Epaphras, with the addition ἐν χριστῷ ἰησοῦ ("my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus"), and does not give it to Aristarchus, who is named in the same sentence as his συνεργός (see Bishop Lightfoot, on Colossians 4:10 , and Bishop Ellicott, on ibid.). If συναιχμάλωτος is to be taken of a bodily captivity, nothing is known of the occasion which gave rise to it in the case of any of the persons to whom it is applied.