Luke 5:10,11

Vers. 10b, 11. The Call.

In Matthew and Mark the call is addressed to the four disciples present; in Luke, in express terms, to Peter only. It results, doubtless, from what follows that the call of the other disciples was implied (comp. launch out, Luke 5:4), or that Jesus extended it to them, perhaps by a gesture. But how can criticism, with this passage before them, which brings the person of Peter into such prominence, while the other two Syn. do not in any way, attribute to our evangelist an intention to underrate this apostle?

The analytical form ἔσῃ ζωγρῶν, thou shalt be catching, expresses the permanence of this mission; and the words, from henceforth, its altogether new character.

Just as the fisherman, by his superior intelligence, makes the fish fall into his snares, so the believer, restored to God and to himself, may seize hold of the natural man, and lift it up with himself to God.

This whole scene implies certain previous relations between Jesus and these young men (Luke 5:5), which agrees with Luke's narrative; for in the latter this incident is placed after the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, when the newly called disciples were present. We must go further back even than this; for how could Jesus have entered into Peter's house on the Sabbath-day (Luke 4:38), unless they had already been intimately acquainted? John's narrative easily explains all: Jesus had made the acquaintance of Peter and his friends when they were with John the Baptist (John 1). As for Matthew and Mark, their narrative has just the fragmentary character that belongs to the traditional narrative. The facts are simply put into juxtaposition. Beyond this, each writer follows his own bent: Matthew is eager after the words of Christ, which in his view are the essential thing; Mark dwells somewhat more on the circumstances; Luke enriches the traditional narrative by the addition of an important detail the miraculous fishing obtained from private sources of information. His narrative is so simple, and at the same time so picturesque, that its accuracy is beyond suspicion. John does not mention this incident, because it was already sufficiently known through the tradition; but, in accordance with his method, he places before us the first commencement of the connection which terminated in this result. Holtzmann thinks that Luke's narrative is made up partly from that of Mark and Matthew, and partly from the account of the miraculous fishing related in John 21. It would be well to explain how, if this were the case, the thrice repeated reply of Peter, Thou knowest that I love Thee, could have been changed by Luke into the exclamation, Depart from me! Is it not much more simple to admit that, when Jesus desired to restore Peter to his apostleship, after the denial, He began by placing him in a similar situation to that in which he was when first called, in the presence of another miraculous draught of fishes; and that it was by awakening in him the fresh impressions of earlier days that He restored to him his ministry? Besides, in John 21, the words, on the other side of the ship, seem to allude to the mission to the heathen.

The course of events therefore was this: Jesus, after having attached to Himself in Judaea these few disciples of John the Baptist, took them back with Him into Galilee; and as He wished Himself to return to His own family for a little while (John 2:1-12; Matthew 4:13), He sent them back to theirs, where they resumed their former employments. In this way those early days passed away, spent in Capernaum and the neighbourhood, of which John speaks (οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας), and which Luke describes from Luke 4:14. But when the time came for Him to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover (John 2:13 et seq.), where Jesus determined to perform the solemn act which was to inaugurate His Messianic ministry (John 2:13 et seq.), He thought that the hour had come to attach them to Him altogether; so, separating Himself finally from His family circle and early calling, He required the same sacrifice from them. For this they were sufficiently prepared by all their previous experiences; they made it therefore without hesitation, and we find them from this time constantly with Him, both in the narrative of John (John 2:17; John 4:2-8) and in the Synoptics.