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Places of the Bible

Melita

Island

What happened here

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length.

  • Paul's Journey to Rome · 56 AD
  • Paul stays at Malta · 57 AD

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

(Acts 27:28), an island in the Mediterranean, the modern Malta. Here the ship in which Paul was being conveyed a prisoner to Rome was wrecked. The bay in which it was wrecked now bears the name of “St. Paul’s Bay”, “a certain creek with a shore.” It is about 2 miles deep and 1 broad, and the whole physical condition of the scene answers the description of the shipwreck given in Acts 28. It was originally colonized by Phoenicians (“barbarians,” 28:2). It came into the possession of the Greeks (B.C. 736), from whom it was taken by the Carthaginians (B.C. 528). In B.C. 242 it was conquered by the Romans, and was governed by a Roman propraetor at the time of the shipwreck (Acts 28:7). Since 1800, when the French garrison surrendered to the English force, it has been a British dependency. The island is about 17 miles long and 9 wide, and about 60 in circumference. After a stay of three months on this island, during which the “barbarians” showed them no little kindness, Julius procured for himself and his company a passage in another Alexandrian corn-ship which had wintered in the island, in which they proceeded on their voyage to Rome (Acts 28:13, 14).

From M. G. Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1893), in the public domain.

Named in 1 verse

Acts
28:1

The place, its people and its events come from Theographic, a knowledge graph of the Bible by Robert Rouse, used and shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.