What Does Acts 27:16 Mean in the King James?
And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The island does not end the storm; it gives the crew a brief shelter in which they can secure the boat before it is torn away.
THE MEANING
When pressure closes in, a pocket of shelter can create just enough room to secure what carries you through. The storm remains, and the work is difficult; the opening is real without being a full escape. Survival hangs in that narrow interval between exposure and loss.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that refuge only counts if the danger disappears: here, shelter is a brief opening to secure what is at risk while the storm continues.
THE ROOT
περικρατεῖς
perikrateis
GROWS FROM
κρατ-
krat-
to hold firmly, seize, or gain control of
The phrase translated “come by” carries the sense of securing or getting a firm hold. Its word-family also speaks of strength and mastery, so the crew’s task is to hold onto what the storm could take while the island gives them a little shelter.
ALSO GROWS
krateō: to take hold of or hold fast
κρατέω
This verb makes the crew’s struggle concrete: they are trying to get and keep a grip on the boat.
kratos: might, strength, or dominion
κράτος
The related word for strength reveals what the crew needs in that exposed moment: enough force to secure the vessel against the storm.
enkrateia: self-control or mastery
ἐγκράτεια
This related word carries the idea of holding oneself in check; here, the same family centers on maintaining a hold amid a force that could overwhelm it.
THE PATTERN
In overwhelming danger, survival depends on what creates room for a vessel to endure.
Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.THE THREAD
But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.Acts uses the κρατ- (krat-) word-family for securing the boat; Revelation uses it for holding fast to what is already in hand. The shared root makes the storm scene about maintaining a grip on what is at risk until the danger passes.
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