28:6a
The islanders were expecting him to swell up or suddenly drop dead: The people of the island recognized that the snake was poisonous. They were expecting the poison to cause him to become swollen or suddenly die. For example:
They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. (Good News Translation)
were expecting: The Greek tense probably indicates the people waited some time expecting Paul to swell or die. For example:
waited, expecting (Revised Standard Version)
him to swell up: The snake bite would probably have caused his hand and possibly his arm to become swollen rather than the whole body. In some languages what became swollen must be explicitly said. For example:
his hand would swell-up
-or-
his ⌊hand⌋ ⌊and arm⌋ to swell
28:6b
after waiting a long time: The people knew about how long it would be before someone bitten by this kind of snake would swell up or die. So they waited longer than that time. It could have been some minutes or perhaps even an hour. These verses do not tell us the exact kind of snake it was. Other ways to translate this phrase are:
when they had waited a long time (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
after they waited longer than usual
seeing nothing unusual happen to him: This indicates that Paul remained healthy. Other ways to translate this phrase are:
without seeing anything out of the ordinary happen to him (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
watched him for a long time, but nothing bad happened to him (New Century Version)
28:6c
they changed their minds: This indicates the people no longer thought Paul was a murderer but instead thought he was a god. Other ways to translate this clause are:
their thinking changed
-or-
they began to think differently
-or-
they changed what they thought
said he was a god: The people of the island believed in many gods. Since Paul did not swell up and die, they began to think that he had power over nature and therefore was a god.
said: The Greek tense probably indicates that they continued saying this for some time. For example:
began to say (New Jerusalem Bible)
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