Acts Chapter 27 verse 15 Holy Bible
and when the ship was caught, and could not face the wind, we gave way `to it,' and were driven.
read chapter 27 in ASV
And when the ship got into the grip of it, and was not able to make headway into the wind, we gave way, and went before it.
read chapter 27 in BBE
And the ship being caught and driven, and not able to bring her head to the wind, letting her go we were driven [before it].
read chapter 27 in DARBY
And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.
read chapter 27 in KJV
read chapter 27 in WBT
When the ship was caught, and couldn't face the wind, we gave way to it, and were driven along.
read chapter 27 in WEB
and the ship being caught, and not being able to bear up against the wind, having given `her' up, we were borne on,
read chapter 27 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 15. - Face the wind for bear up into the wind, A.V.; gave way to it, and were driven for let her drive, A.V. Was caught; συναρπασθέντος, only here in this sense of being caught and carried away by the gale, but used in three other places by St. Luke (and only by him), viz. Luke 8:29; Acts 6:12; Acts 19:29. It is found more than once in the LXX., and is common in classical Greek. Sophocles uses it of a storm which carries everything away, Πάντα ξυναρπάσας θύελλ ὅπως ('Elect.,' 1150). Face; ἀντοφθαλμεῖν, only here in the New Testament; but in Polybius and elsewhere it is said or' looking any one in the face with defiance. And so Wisd. 12:14; Ecclus. 19:5 (Complut. Edit.), ἀντοφθαλμῶν ἡδονᾶις, "resisteth pleasures," A.V. Compare the phrase, "looked one another in the face" (2 Kings 14:8, 11, ὤφθησαν προσώποις). Hence here it means simply "resist," or "stand against," or, as well rendered in the R.V., "face." Gave way to it, etc.; ἐπιδόντες ἐφερόμεθα, a rather obscure phrase, but best explained "giving her" (the ship) to the wind, "we were carried" rapidly before it. Ἑπιδίδωμι, is to give, to give up, to give into any one's hand (Luke 4:17; Acts 15:30). ἐπιδόντες is opposed to ἀντοφθαλμεῖν, giving up to, abandoning her to, as opposed to resisting. Ἐφερόμεθα, we were hurried along before the wind, without will or choice of our own (as ver. 17). Common in Homer and other classical writers, for being borne along by wind, or waves, or storm, etc. (For the application of φέρομαι in the middle voice to a wind, see Acts 2:2.)
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) And could not bear up into the wind.--The Greek verb is literally, "to look into the wind's eye," to face the wind. The figure is a sufficiently natural one in all languages; but it perhaps received additional vividness from the fact that a large eye was commonly painted on the prow of Greek vessels. The practice is still not unusual in Mediterranean boats. Assuming the direction of the gale to have been as stated in the previous Note the ship was now driven in a south-west direction, scudding before the wind.
