Acts 28:4
And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.
The verse belongs to the account of Paul's shipwreck and its aftermath, set in a time when sea travel was perilous and often unsafe during part of the year. The people of Melita, the islanders who saw the venomous beast hanging on Paul's hand, said among themselves that he must be a murderer whom divine vengeance would not let live even though he had escaped the sea and the shipwreck. Their judgment rested on the belief that such a calamity or fate reveals guilt, that suffering of this kind proves the sufferer is guilty.
Paul calmly shook the deadly viper off into the fire, trusting God and knowing it could not harm him. He suffered no harm from the bite, and that deliverance overturned their judgment against him. After seeing him remain unharmed they changed their minds and called him a god.
His survival fulfills Jesus' promise that His disciples and followers would take up serpents without being harmed, and the miracle was a sign accompanying the apostles' work and confirming their testimony about Christ. The episode served God's special purpose for Paul's journey upon the sea, so that the ship's crew would witness God's power through Paul and the heathen would hear the name of Jesus, and through his teaching and the miracles he worked there many were converted.
The men involved were heathen in darkness with no knowledge of God's written law who had never even heard the name of Christ, yet they were kind to His servants and protected them at the risk of their own lives. Their kindness reveals the working of God's Holy Spirit and divine power, with the grace of Christ implanted in the savage heart to quicken sympathy contrary to nature and contrary to education. The Light that lights every person was shining in their souls, and if heeded would guide their feet to the kingdom of God.