Acts 28:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

When they were escaped, they knew From some of the inhabitants who came to them; that the island On which they were cast; was called Melita Or, Malta. This island, which took its name from the abundance of honey found therein, (meli, in Greek, signifying honey,) lies between Africa and Sicily, about sixty miles distant from the latter country, and is about twelve miles broad, and twenty long. It consists of a chalky rock, having not more than between one and three feet depth of earth, and yet is very fertile, producing much cotton and excellent fruits. The Melitese were originally a colony of the Carthaginians, as appears from several old inscriptions in Punic characters, and from the language of the present inhabitants, the number of whom is stated to be above ninety thousand. The place on the island where Paul and his company were driven on shore is, at this day, shown to travellers, and goes by the name of St. Paul's shore, or haven. His shipwreck here procured a kind of religious veneration to the island among Christian nations; in consequence of which, it was given, in the year of our Lord 1525, by Charles V., emperor of Germany, to the knights of Rhodes, expelled from that island by the Turks, and generally called the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. They are one thousand in number, of whom five hundred always reside on the island. In the year 1798, the French, under Bonaparte, took the island; and, in 1800, being reduced by famine, after a blockade of two years, it surrendered to the English, under whose dominion it still continues.