Euroclydon— Among many other particulars respecting the air and weather of Syria, &c. we are told that the westerly winds there are generally attended with rain. (See Luke 12:54. 1 Kings 18:41; 1 Kings 18:46.) But the easterly winds are usually dry, notwithstanding they are sometimes exceedingly hazyand tempestuous; at which times they are called by the sea-faring people, levanters, being not confined to any single point, but blowing in all directions, from the north-east, round by the north to the south-east. The great wind, or mighty tempest, or vehement east wind, described by the prophet Jonah (i. 4 Acts 4:8.), appears to have been one of these levanters; as was also, in all probability, the Euroclydon here mentioned: for St. Luke describes it to be ανεμος τυφωνικος, a violent or tempestuous wind, bearing away all before it; and, from the circumstances which attended it, appears to have varied very little throughout the whole period of it from the true east point. For after the ship could not αντοφθαλμειν, bear, or, in the mariner's term, luff up against it, (Acts 27:15.) but they were obliged to let her drive, we cannot conceive, as there are no remarkable currents in that part of the sea, and as the rudder could be of little use, that it could take any other course than as the winds alone directed it. Accordingly, in the description of the storm, we find the vessel was first of all under the island Clauda, (Acts 27:16.) which is a little to the southward of the parallel of that part of the coast of Crete, from whence it may be supposed to have been driven; then it was tossed along the bottom of the gulph of Adria, (Acts 27:27.) and afterwards broken in pieces (Acts 27:41.) at Melita, which is a little to the northward of the parallel above mentioned; sothat the direction and course of this particular euroclydon seems to have been first at east by north, and afterwards pretty nearly east by south. Virgil elegantly describes one of these Levanters thus:
——ubi navigiis violentior incidit Eurus, Nosse, quot Ionii veniant ad litora fluctus. Georg. 2. 5. 107, 108.
——Number, when the blustering Eurus roars, The billows beating on Ionian shores. DRYDEN.