It was the fourteenth night may be more appropriately rendered in some languages as “it was at night, two weeks after the storm began.”

By the storm is the manner in which the Good News Translation has made explicit the rendering of the Greek verb “being driven.” However, a number of translators understand the meaning of this verb to be “we were drifting.” The closest equivalent in some languages is “the wind kept blowing us along” or “the wind kept blowing from behind us and making the boat move.”

The exact boundaries that Luke had in mind for the Mediterranean (literally “Adria”) are not known, but they would have at least included the sea between Crete and Sicily.

The sailors suspected may be rendered as “the sailors thought.” If a specific term for sailors is lacking, one can employ “those responsible for taking care of the ship” or “those who were in charge of the ship.”

We were getting close to land is literally “land was approaching them,” but for the English reader the Good News Translation is much more natural. In other languages, however, it may be more natural to say “the ship was getting closer to the land” or “the ship and the land were coming closer together.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .