They looked when he should have swollen... — Better, and they were expecting that... The verb for “swollen” implies literally “inflammation,” and one of the enormous serpents of Africa took its name. Prestes (“the inflamer”), from it. Lucan (ix. 790) describes the effect of its bite —
“Percussit Prestes, illi ruber igneus ora
Succendit, tenditque cutem, pereunte figurâ.”
[“ The Prestes bit him, and a fiery flush
Lit up his face, and set the skin a-stretch,
And all its comely grace had passed away.”]
They changed their minds, and said that he was a god. — The miraculous escape naturally made an even stronger impression on the minds of the Melitese than what had seemed a supernatural judgment. Their thoughts may have travelled quickly to the attributes of the deities who, like Apollo or Æsculapius, were depicted as subduing serpents. The sudden change of belief may be noted as presenting a kind of inverted parallelism with that which had come over the people of Lystra. (See Notes on Acts 14:11; Acts 14:19.)