The wave-stirring easter, a tempestuous wind which came down on Paul's ship on the south shore of Crete, and at length wrecked her upon Malta, Ac 27. The small island Clauda, south of which she passed, and the "Syrtis" on the African coast, into which the seamen feared she would be driven, Ac 27:17, lay southwest of Crete. The result shows that the general course of the wind was east-northeast. It would now be called there a Levanter.

south-east billow, the name of the wind which blew in the Adriatic Gulf, and which struck the ship in which Paul was wrecked on the coast of Malta (Ac 27:14; R.V., "Euraquilo," i.e., north-east wind). It is called a "tempestuous wind," i.e., as literally rendered, a "typhonic wind," or a typhoon. It is the modern Gregalia or Levanter. (Comp. Jon 1:4.)

Ac 27:14. The Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus manuscripts read Euraquilon, i.e. the E.N.E. wind, just the wind best suited to the facts. It came down from the island of Crete, S. of which Paul was sailing. It was "typhoon like" (tufonikos, KJV "tempestuous"), such gales in the Levant being often accompanied by terrific squalls from the mountains. The "S. wind" (Ac 27:13) too is the one that often changes suddenly to a violent N. wind. The long continuance of the gale ("the fourteenth night," Ac 27:27), the beclouding of sun and stars for days (Ac 27:20), and the heavy "rain" after the storm (Ac 28:2), are characteristic of this wind in the Mediterranean in the present day. The vessel being driven from the coast to Clauda isle (Ac 27:16), and the fear lest she should be driven S.W. to the African Syrtis (Ac 27:17), favor this reading.

??????????. The name used by the sailors for a tempestuous wind in the Mediterranean, experienced when Paul was being taken to Rome. Ac 27:14. The etymology of the word is not known: some MSS read ?????????, euraquilo. It way simply imply a furious wind, like a Levanter in modern times, irrespective of the quarter from whence it blew.

Euroc'lydon

(a violent agitation), a tempestuous wind or hurricane, cyclone, on the Mediterranean, and very dangerous; now called a "levanter." This wind seized the ship in which St. Paul was ultimately wrecked on the coast of Malta. It came down from the island and therefore must have blown more or less from the northward.

Ac 27:14

EUROCLYDON, the Greek name for the north-east wind, very dangerous at sea, of the nature of a whirlwind, which falls of a sudden upon ships, Ac 27:14. The same wind is now called a Levanter.