Exploring the Meaning of Paralegomai in Greek

παραλέγω expresses the action “to sail past,” a seafaring verb used in the voyage narrative of Acts 27. In its two uses, it describes coastal movement where progress is made by passing along a shoreline rather than striking out into open water.

Root and Related Words

Paralegomai (παραλέγω) derives from para (παρά), “from/with/beside” (Strong’s G3844), and lego (λέγω), “to say” (Strong’s G3004).

Occurrences

“With difficulty sailing along it we came to a certain place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.” (Acts 27:8)

Here the voyage is marked by strain and slow progress: “With difficulty” frames the whole movement, and the travel ends at a named coastal stopping point, “Fair Havens,” located “near the city of Lasea.” Paralegomai contributes the picture of a ship advancing by passing along a fixed geographic feature (“along it”), keeping close enough to register specific places and nearby towns. The verb supports the narrative’s careful, incremental itinerary: the ship does not merely travel in a general direction; it proceeds by moving past the coast until it reaches a particular harbor area where the travelers can identify where they have arrived.

“When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close to shore.” (Acts 27:13)

In this scene the conditions appear favorable—“the south wind blew softly”—and the crew’s confidence is explicit: they act “supposing that they had obtained their purpose.” Against that backdrop, paralegomai again places the ship’s movement in relation to land: after they “weighed anchor,” they “sailed along Crete, close to shore.” The verb aligns with the added phrase “close to shore,” emphasizing a route that traces the coastline. Rather than presenting the ship as cutting across the sea, the wording depicts a deliberate coastal run, one that keeps the island in view and uses it as the boundary line for travel.

Sense and Usage

Across these two passages, “to sail past” functions as a precise, spatially anchored description of nautical progress. In Acts 27 the ship’s movement is narrated in relation to visible landforms and identifiable points: in one case the travelers reach “a certain place called Fair Havens,” and in the other they proceed “along Crete.” The verb’s sense fits naturally where the coastline serves as both guide and measure—travel is reckoned by what the vessel passes alongside, and the result is a route that can be narrated with local names and proximity (“near the city of Lasea,” “close to shore”).

In Acts 27:8 the same coastal passing is colored by hardship: the ship advances “with difficulty,” suggesting that even staying on a coastal line does not remove the resistance of wind and sea. In Acts 27:13 the coastal passing is chosen under seemingly improved conditions: the gentle south wind invites action, and the crew moves out with a sense of having achieved what they intended. In both settings, paralegomai frames travel as controlled motion relative to land, but the surrounding clauses show how that same kind of movement can occur under very different levels of strain and confidence.

The repeated pairing of the verb with explicit land reference (“along it”; “along Crete”) keeps the reader oriented. In a longer voyage account, such language does more than report motion; it tracks a path. Coastal sailing becomes something that can be narrated step-by-step, with the ship’s course mapped by what it goes alongside and where it comes to. Paralegomai thus helps Acts 27 read like a log of progress, where geography is not background but the line along which the action unfolds.

Imagery

In these verses the verb carries the concrete imagery of a vessel hugging a coastline. The ship moves with land near enough to be named and measured—Fair Havens “near the city of Lasea” (Acts 27:8) and Crete “close to shore” (Acts 27:13)—so that “to sail past” becomes a picture of travel traced along an edge, with each passing point marking the journey forward.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).