A certain vessel descending... — The form of the vision corresponded, as has just been said, with the bodily condition of the Apostle. Its inward meaning may fairly be thought of as corresponding to his prayer. One who looked out from Joppa upon the waters of the Great Sea towards the far-off Isles of the Gentiles, might well seek to know by what process and under what conditions those who dwelt in them would be brought within the fold of which he was one of the chief appointed shepherds. The place, we may add, could not fail to recall the memory of the great prophet who had taken ship from thence, and who was conspicuous alike as a preacher of a gospel of repentance to the Gentiles, and, in our Lord’s own teaching, as a type of the Resurrection (Matthew 12:40-41). The Apostle was to be taught, as the prophet had been of old, that the thoughts of God were not as his thoughts (Jonah 4:10-11).
A great sheet knit at the four corners. — Better, bound by four ends — i.e., those of the ropes by which it seemed to Peter’s gaze to be let down from the opened firmament. The Greek word, literally beginnings, is used as we use “ends.”