Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
(29) Literally, “and the men labored to return to dry land.” The ideal meaning of חתר is to dig, or to dig through, Job 24:16; Ezekiel 12:7: but it is here in its secondary sense of laboring or toiling. להשיב, to return, must be taken here intransitively, though generally it bears in Hiphil a transitive sense. “Καί παρεβιαζοντο οι ανδρες του επιστρεψαι προς την γην — And the men strove to return to land.” — Sept. And the men rowed hard to regain the land.” — Henderson. — Ed. 