It records the journey of Paul from Caesarea heading to Rome, but stranded for a time in Malta.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are: Verses 1-8, 15-20, 27-29 and 37 are examples of the passages within Acts which speak of "we", including the narrator.

[3] The narrator's customary nautical detail is shown by noting that the first ship they boarded for the coastal voyage originally came from Adramyttium (at the Aegean north coast towards the Troas, verse 2), and that the second came from Alexandria (verse 6), which could be one of grain ships (cf.

[9] The verse recalls Jesus Christ God feeding the multitude and the words said by priest during the Eucharistic Consecration.

The experienced sailors took the risky strategy of casting off the anchors and running the ship ashore with the help of improved visibility in the morning (verses 39–40), but the plan was hindered by some unexpected underwater barrier (verse 41), so the ship started to break up at some distance from the beach.

[10] In the phrase "run the ship aground", the word "ship" uses the Homeric and classical Greek word nans, instead of ploion (boat) and skaphos (dinghy) in other passages, and the verb epokello ("run aground") is also Homeric (cf.

[10] According to Jefferson White, the meteorological and nautical evidence demonstrates that these events must have occurred just as Luke records them.

This nautical and meteorological evidence provides confirmation of the historical accuracy of Luke's narrative.

[11] Bob Cornuke and Graham Hutt claim that the location of the shipwreck was at St. Thomas Bay on the southeast of Malta on a sandbar called Muxnar Reef.

[13] Matthew Henry draws out several points from this chapter to apply to lives of Christians.

From verses 1–11 he draws an analogy with those that do not make any headway in life, they fail to take advantage of favourable conditions, even if they resist being driven backwards.

Blessing of the world can turn out to be an unwanted burden, and may have to be discarded, just as things were thrown off the ship in the storm.

[8] On verses 30–38 Matthew Henry's point is that people should take proper safety precautions and not tempt God by failing to take them, and only trusting in him.

Salvation is via God's plan, which is repentance, faith, prayer and obedience, and not some other shortcut.