Acts 27:13 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And when the south wind blew softly. — There was a change at once in the force and the direction of the wind. With a gentle and favourable breeze from the south, the pilot and the owner thought that all was smooth sailing, and the ship left the Fair Havens and made across the bay, a distance of thirty-four miles, for Phænice. They still, however, hugged the coast, as afraid to venture too far into the open sea. The Greek adverb asson, which is rightly rendered “close” in the Authorised version, has been mistaken, in the Vulgate and some other versions, for the accusative case of Assos, as though it were a proper name, and the words have been variously rendered “when they had left Assos,” or “when they had made for Asses,” or “when they had come in sight of Assos.” The island Assos, however, lay far to the north (see Note on Acts 20:13), and there is no evidence of the existence of any town of that name in Crete. Of the English versions, Wiclif and the Rhemish follow the Vulgate, “when they had removed” (W.), or “parted” (Rh.), “from Assos”; Tyndale and Cranmer, following Luther, “they loosed unto Asson.” The Geneva translation was the first to give the true meaning, and is following by the Authorised version. The tense of the Greek verb for “they sailed close,” implies that they were in the act of doing this when the storm burst upon them, as in the next verse.