Acts 27:18

18 We continued to be tossed so violently by the storm that the next day the men began to throw the cargo overboard.

Acts 27:18 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 27:18

And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest
Sometimes being lifted up as it were to the heavens, and then presently sinking down, as if they were going into the bottom of the sea; such a condition at sea is described to the life by the Psalmist, in ( Psalms 107:25-27 ) .

the next day they lightened the ship;
of its burden, its lading, the goods and merchandise that were in it; as the mariners did in the ship in which Jonah was, ( Jonah 1:5 ) the Ethiopic version renders it, "they cast the goods into the sea"; the Arabic version, the "merchandise".

Acts 27:18 In-Context

16 As we drifted to the sheltered side of a small island called Cauda, we barely got control of the ship's lifeboat.

17 The men pulled it up on deck. Then they passed ropes under the ship to reinforce it. Fearing that they would hit the large sandbank off the shores of Libya, they lowered the sail and were carried along by the wind.

18 We continued to be tossed so violently by the storm that the next day the men began to throw the cargo overboard.

19 On the third day they threw the ship's equipment overboard.

20 For a number of days we couldn't see the sun or the stars. The storm wouldn't let up. It was so severe that we finally began to lose any hope of coming out of it alive.