Acts 27:34

34 Therefore I urge you to take [some] food, for this is necessary for your preservation. For not a hair from your head will be lost."

Acts 27:34 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 27:34

Wherefore I pray you to take some meat
To sit down composedly, and eat meat cheerfully and freely:

for this is for your health;
the Alexandrian copy reads, "for our health"; it was for the health of them all, that they might be better able to bear the shock and fatigue of the shipwreck, and be in better spirits, and in a better capacity to help themselves, and one another:

for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you;
a proverbial phrase, expressing the utmost safety of their lives, and therefore might cheerfully eat their food, and rest themselves, and be satisfied. To dream of shaving the hair, portended shipwreck to sailors; nor was it lawful for any to pare his nails, or cut off his hair, but in a storm; to which custom, some think, the apostle here alludes ^F23; see ( 1 Samuel 14:45 ) ( 2 Samuel 14:11 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 Kirchman. de funer. Rom. l. 2. c. 14. p. 212, 213.

Acts 27:34 In-Context

32 Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it fall away.

33 And until the day was about to come, Paul was urging [them] all to take [some] food, saying, "Today [is the] fourteenth day you have waited [anxiously], [and] you have continued without eating, having taken nothing.

34 Therefore I urge you to take [some] food, for this is necessary for your preservation. For not a hair from your head will be lost."

35 And [after he] said these [things] and took bread, he gave thanks to God in front of [them] all, and [after] breaking [it], he began to eat.

36 So they all were encouraged and partook of food themselves.