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Ac 27:26,44

Verse 1. They knew that the island was called Melita.] There were two islands of this name: one in the Adriatic Gulf, or Gulf of Venice, on the coast of Illyricum, and near to Epidaurus; the other in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and Africa, and now called Malta. It is about fifty miles from the coast of Sicily; twenty miles long, and twelve miles in its greatest breadth; and about sixty miles in circumference. It is one immense rock of white, soft freestone, with about one foot depth of earth on an average, and most of this has been brought from Sicily! It produces cotton, excellent fruits, and fine honey; from which it appears the island originally had its name; for meli, meli, and in the genitive case, melitov, melitos, signifies honey. Others suppose that it derived its name from the Phoenicians, who established a colony in it, and made it a place of refuge, when they extended their traffic to the ocean, because it was furnished with excellent harbours: (on the E. and W. shores:) hence, in their tongue, it would be called hfylm Meliteh, escape or refuge, from flm malat, to escape.

The Phaeacians were probably the first inhabitants of this island: they were expelled by the Phoenicians; the Phoenicians by the Greeks; the Greeks by the Carthaginians; the Carthaginians by the Romans, who possessed it in the time of the apostle; the Romans by the Goths; the Goths by the Saracens; the Saracens by the Sicilians, under Roger, earl of Sicily, in 1190. Charles V., emperor of Germany, took possession of it by his conquest of Naples and Sicily; and he gave it in 1525 to the knights of Rhodes, who are also called the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1798, this island surrendered to the French, under Bonaparte, and in 1800, after a blockade of two years, the island being reduced by famine, surrendered to the British, under whose dominion it still remains (1814.) Every thing considered, there can be little doubt that this is the Melita at which St. Paul was wrecked, and not at that other island in the Adriatic, or Venitian Gulf, as high up northward as Illyricum. The following reasons make this greatly evident: 1. Tradition has unvaryingly asserted this as the place of the apostle's shipwreck. 2. The island in the Venitian Gulf, in favour of which Mr. Bryant so learnedly contends, is totally out of the track in which the euroclydon must have driven the vessel. 3. It is said, in ver. 11, that another ship of Alexandria, bound, as we must suppose, for Italy, and very probably carrying wheat thither, as St. Paul's vessel did, (chap. xxvii. 38,) had been driven out of its course of sailing, by stress of weather, up to the Illyricum Melita, and had been for that cause obliged to winter in the isle. Now this is a supposition which, as I think, is too much of a supposition to be made. 4. In St. Paul's voyage to Italy from Melita, on board the Alexandrian ship that had wintered there, he and his companions landed at Syracuse, ver. 12, 13, and from thence went to Rhegium. But if it had been the Illyrican Melita, the proper course of the ship would have been, first to Rhegium, before it reached Syracuse, and needed not to have gone to Syracuse at all; whereas, in a voyage from the present Malta to Italy, it was necessary to reach Syracuse, in Sicily, before the ship could arrive at Rhegium in Italy. See the map; and see Bp. Pearce, from whom I have extracted the two last arguments.

That Malta was possessed by the Phoenicians, before the Romans conquered it, Bochart has largely proved; and indeed the language to the present day, notwithstanding all the political vicissitudes through which the island has passed, bears sufficient evidence of its Punic origin. In the year 1761, near a place called Ben Ghisa, in this island, a sepulchral cave was discovered, in which was a square stone with an inscription in Punic or Phoenician characters, on which Sir Wm. Drummond has written a learned essay, (London, Valpy, 1810, 4to.,) which he supposes marks the burial place, at least of the ashes, of the famous Carthaginian general, Hannibal. I shall give this inscription in Samaritan characters, as being the present form of the ancient Punic, with Sir Wm. Drummond's translation: - [Samaritan MSS. majuscule] Chadar Beth olam kabar Chanibaal Nakeh becaleth haveh, rach - m daeh Amos beshuth Chanib - aal ben Bar-melec.

"The inner chamber of the sanctuary of the sepulchre of Hannibal, Illustrious in the consummation of calamity.

He was beloved; The people lament, when arrayed In order of battle, Hannibal the son of Bar-Melec." As this is a curious piece, and one of the largest remains of the Punic language now in existence, and as it helps to ascertain the ancient inhabitants of this island, I thought it not improper to insert it here. For the illustration of this and several other points of Punic antiquity, I must refer the curious reader to the essay itself.

Ver. 1. And when they were escaped , etc.] From the danger they were exposed to by shipwreck, and were got safe to land; this is omitted in the Syriac version: then they knew that the island was called Melita ; an island toward the African shore, where it is placed both by Pliny f1325 , and Ptolomy f1326 ; in which, the latter says, was the city Melita: it lies between Sicily and Tripolis of Barbary, and is now called Malta: it was famous for the knights of Rhodes, which are now called the knights of Malta: it has its name from jlm , “to escape”, it being formerly a refuge to the Phoenicians, especially in stormy weather, in their long voyage from Tyre to Gades; and was indeed a place of escape to the Apostle Paul, and those that were with him.

And perhaps it might be so called from its being a refuge for pirates; for Cicero says, here pirates used to winter almost every year, and yet did not spoil the temple of Juno, as Verres did: though some say it was so called from the great abundance of honey found in it; for it was a very pleasant and fruitful island, bringing forth great plenty of wheat, rye, flax, cummin, cotton, figs, wine, roses, thyme, lavender, and many other sweet and delightful herbs, from whence bees did gather great plenty of honey. It was, according to Pliny, distant from Camerina eighty four miles, and from Lilybaeum a hundred and thirteen; and it is said to be distant from the promontory of Sicily an hundred miles, though others say sixty; and that it was so far from Syracuse, which is the next place the apostle came to in this voyage, was from Africa an hundred and ninety miles. On the east side, a little from the chief city of it, now called Malta, was a famous temple of Juno, spoiled by Verres, as before observed; and on the south side another of Hercules, the ruins of both which are yet to be seen. The compass of the island is about sixty miles, the length twenty, and the breadth twelve, and has in it five ports, and about sixty villages.