What is the meaning of miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5?
The Sunday gospel lectionary reading for the fourth Dominicus before Lent in Year C is Luke 5.i–11, the story of the miraculous catch of fish, as we jump frontwards into Jesus' ministry before returning to the temptations in the desert at the start of Lent. It is a captivating story in its ain right, only it likewise raises questions about the connections with the business relationship in Marker ane of the call of the disciples and the story in John 21 of a like miraculous catch after Jesus' resurrection.
The narrative is both full of what looks similar eye-witness particular, but told in Luke'south distinctive mode. The opening judgement runs through verses one and ii, and is structured with several subordinate clauses ('hypotaxis') in contrast with Marking's typical paratactical fashion in narratives ('and…and…'). There is a vivid sense of the crowd pressing in on Jesus; I cannot think of another place in the gospels where this physical sense of crowding in is expressed in quite the same way. They have come up to hear 'the word of God', which is Luke'due south distinctive term for Jesus' message of the kingdom (in Matt 15.6 = Mark 7.13 and John 10.35 the phrase refers to the Scriptures). Luke uses the phrase in the gospel where it is non nowadays in the parallel accounts (as in Luke 8.11 and Luke eight.21) and in Acts information technology becomes a term for the message of the gospel (Acts four.31, vi.2, 8.fourteen, 12.24 and so on) as it oft does in Paul (1 Cor 14.36, i Thess 2.13 and elsewhere) thus expressing the continuity between the Former Testament, Jesus' teaching, and the apostolic proclamation.
Luke (alone in the NT) calls the Bounding main of Galilee the 'Lake of Gennesaret', using the Greek expression derived from the OT proper noun Kinneret (Num 34.11, Josh xiii.27) meaning 'harp' (-shaped), some other detail confirming that Luke is writing for a non-Jewish patron or audition. In Marker 1.16 Simon and Andrew are 'net-casting' and Matt 4.eighteen expands this into 'were throwing casting-nets', the amphiblestron being a round net with small weights on the end which would be thrown from the shore over a modest shoal of fish. In this account, Luke uses a more general term diktuon, which must refer to 'seine' nets that hang in the water and are drawn in from the boat to grab a larger shoal. They were made of linen, so visible to the fish during the twenty-four hours and therefore only used at night, and needed to be washed each forenoon. Luke'southward description of Simon and Andrew'southward practice thus fits historical detail precisely.
I love the item that Jesus sees 'two boats' and that he gets into one of them; the other boat then comes into play in the 2nd half of the story when Simon and his companions call on those with the other boat to help with the catch—depicted accurately in the moving picture above by Raphael. (Luke also has an interest in numbers, for example in noting the 276 people in the shipwreck in Acts 27.37, a 'triangular' number, too as in numerical composition, so information technology might be that the 'two' boats advise the reliability of testimony equally per Deut 17.vi—but that is speculative, and I haven't found this mentioned in commentaries.) Information technology has been tempting for preachers to talk of Simon as a 'poor' fisherman, but this involves imposing a post-industrial configuration of wealth and poverty on an agrarian society. Line-fishing would fit with other artisan skills and be above subsistence or tenant farming, in turn above hired casual labour, and would non be especially 'poor'. Nosotros run across both here and in Mark ane.20's mention of the 'hired men' that these fishermen own their own boats and their business concern.
This region of the shore of Galilee is characterised by a serial of pocket-size, curved bays, and 1 of them is now known as 'Sower'southward Bay' from the depiction in Mark 4.1 of Jesus telling that parable from the boat (Luke viii.four doesn't give the situation). The curved bank of the shore functions like the seating in an amphitheatre, making it like shooting fish in a barrel to hear someone speaking from the edge of the h2o or sitting in a boat—I know because I have done it!
There are several striking things nearly the second half of the narrative. The kickoff is that the crowd rapidly disappears from view, and we have an virtually Johannine sense of personal see between Jesus and ane individual, Simon. Although Simon's business concern partners (referred to in v 7 with the almost technical term metochos, softened to the afterward 'partner', koinonos in v 10) are mentioned, the narrative keeps returning to Simon—his reaction and his commissioning.
Secondly, his applied questioning of Jesus' instruction (later on all, information technology is Simon who is the expert at angling!) and all the same obedience to the control of the 'main' parallels the response of Mary to the angel Gabriel 'How can this be…?' in Luke 1.34. But the shape of the encounter overall has a stronger parallel with OT encounters with the holiness of God; Joel Green notes the structural parallel with Isaiah's epiphany, despite the contrasts in setting:
| Luke v.i–eleven | Isa half-dozen.1–ten | |
| vv iv–7 (9–10a) | epiphany | vv 1–4 |
| v 8 | reaction | 5 v |
| v 10b | reassurance | 5 vii |
| v 10b | commission | vv 8–x |
Information technology is notable that Luke recounts this story in a different position from Mark, where in Mark 1.18 the response of the disciples to Jesus' phone call seems strangely abrupt. We have been told picayune about Jesus' teaching and ministry, his miracles existence postponed to Marker's account of a 'typical day' in the ministry building of Jesus later in the chapter, including the healing of Simon's mother-in-police force. But Luke locates this commission within Jesus' ministry, and then Simon's mother in law has already been healed (Luke 4.38–39) and others have been delivered from demons, which lends this business relationship a 'narrative plausibility' which was highly valued by Graeco-Roman rhetoricians.
Thirdly, Peter's reaction and cry that he is a 'sinner' is quite startling. There is no suggestion here that Peter is a item bad or unworthy person for any specific reason, merely he recognises the vast difference between himself and Jesus. The term Luke uses to limited the 'astonishment' of Simon and his companions in v 9, thambos, is regularly used of the dread that comes over those who encounter the awesome holiness of God. In other words, they are not but astonished at the inexplicable miracle; they realise that they are in the presence of someone who is (w)hol(50)y other. This is Luke's kickoff utilize of the word 'sinner', and it introduces a theme complementary to the emphasis we take seen previously on God's honouring the piously devout: Jesus came to 'call sinners to repentance' (Luke 5.32), a summary statement that gathers this sequence of stories together. This focus emphasises both the difference between Jesus and those he has come up to and his boundary-crossing initiative too as the content of his message, that of the transformation that comes with repentance, a theme we run into all through the gospel which reaches a climax in the story of Zacchaeus in Luke xix.
Fourthly, the catch of fish, and the whole activity of fishing, becomes a metaphor for the ministry of the gospel to which Simon and his companions are called—though information technology is worth noting that, in the gospel itself, the disciples are almost invisible, in contrast with Matthew and Mark, since the focus on their ministry will come up in Luke's 2d book. (And, sadly, the Greek text does non offer the nice pun we have in English, changing fisher-men to fishers-of-men, as the Greek term is simply halieis who go halieis anthropon in Mark and Matthew—and Luke stays even further away past simply maxim 'You will catch alive [zogreo] people' in 5 10.) We will see the metaphorical boat of the early church filled nigh to sinking throughout Acts, as on several occasions thousands come to faith in Jesus at a time, and the structural nets of leadership need expanding and reconsidering, not least when the 'gentile mission' takes off under Paul's ministry building.
In the Former Attestation, the paradigm of grab and landing fish was mostly negative, sometimes existence an image for warfare, just oft associated with God's eschatological judgement:
The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: "The time volition surely come when yous will be taken away with hooks, the concluding of y'all with fishhooks." (Amos iv.two)
You have made people like the fish in the body of water…The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his internet… (Hab 1.14–15)
"But now I volition ship for many fishermen," declares the LORD, "and they will catch them. After that I volition transport for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks." (Jer xvi.16)
Although judgement is not absent from Luke's description of Jesus' ministry building, here the strong association is between the oversupply pressing in to hear the word of God, and the extraordinary take hold of of fish. Jesus' commission to Simon (and the others) to 'take hold of people live' is conspicuously offered as a parallel to his own ministry building of teaching and calling people to repentance. Whereas a fisherman catches fish to kill and sell them, Simon volition 'catch' people from death to prepare them free into the life of the kingdom. And this moment of grace in the message of the gospel delays the day of sentence and invites response.
Fifthly and finally, there is an unmistakable accent on a decisive pause with the past. 'From at present on' they will exist doing something quite dissimilar, and this means that, pulling their boats up on the shore (some other nice 'eye-witness' particular) they leave everything—their business organization, their boats, their livelihood, and even this actual catch which could be sold. Where Mark emphasises the break with family loyalties ('they left their male parent…' Mark 1.20), Luke emphasises the economical consequences of the conclusion.
Leaving all that has been of value, they volition now find their fundamental sense of belonging and being in relationship to Jesus, the community existence congenital effectually him, and the redemptive purpose he serves. (Joel Green, NIC commentary on Luke, p 235).
Equally a postscript, I notation that commentators from a previous generation who were wedded to form-critical approaches to the text and postulated a long time flow betwixt the events of Jesus' life and the writing of the gospels, in which the oral tradition allowed stories to develop in quite independent directions, saw John 21 and Luke v as 2 re-workings originating from one story. A summary of this is plant in the footnotes to the New American Bible (NAB) on John 21:
At that place are many non-Johannine peculiarities in this chapter, some suggesting Lucan Greek style; yet this passage is closer to John than John vii:53-8:11. There are many Johannine features besides. Its closest parallels in the synoptic gospels are found in Luke 5:1-11 and Matthew fourteen:28-31. Perhaps the tradition was ultimately derived from John just preserved by some disciple other than the writer of the residual of the gospel. The appearances narrated seem to exist independent of those in John 20. Even if a subsequently addition, the chapter was added earlier publication of the gospel, for it appears in all manuscripts.
And yet even the most brief of assessments of the setting of the story, the people involved, the location of Jesus, and theological issues communicated, the reaction of those involved, and the narrative consequences, make this a completely unpersuasive argument.
(The film at the top is the depiction of the story by Raphael from 1515.)
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