“Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.”
King James Version (KJV)
27:24 God hath given - Paul had prayed for them. And God gave him their lives; perhaps their souls also. And the centurion, subserving the providence of God, gave to Paul the lives of the prisoners. How wonderfully does his providence reign in the most contingent things! And rather will many bad men be preserved with a few good, (so it frequently happens,) than one good man perish with many bad. So it was in this ship: so it is in the world. Thee - At such a time as this, there was not the same danger, which might otherwise have been, of St. Paul's seeming to speak out of vanity, what he really spoke out of necessity. All the souls - Not only all the prisoners, as Julius afterward did, #Acts 27:43|; ask for souls, they shall be given thee: yea, more than thou hopest for, that sail with thee - So that Paul, in the sight of God, was the master and pilot of the ship.
Ac 27:24 Fear not, Paul. They were in the midst of terrible peril, in a ruined ship, on an unknown sea, tossed by the storm, surrounded by angry waves beneath, and angry heavens above. But God had not forgotten his servant. God hath given thee all, etc. Paul had then prayed for his fellow voyagers.