When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.”
Parallel Translations
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When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.”
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When he had leeft speakynge he sayde vnto Simon: Launche out in to the depe and let slippe youre nettes to make a draught
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Now when he had left speaking, he sayd vnto Simon, Lanch out into the deepe, and let downe your nettes to make a draught.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (2)
Passages linked to Luke 5:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 21:6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” They cast it therefore, and now they weren’t able to draw it in for the multitude of fish.
- Matthew 17:27 But, lest we cause them to stumble, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take up the first fish that comes up. When you have opened its mouth, you will find a stater coin. Take that, and give it to them for me and you.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 4 Now when he had left speaking, he said…
4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
Ver. 4. Let down your nets] This is the fare he pays them, for the use of their ship. No man loseth by Christ.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. Our Saviour having delivered his doctrine…
Observe here, 1. Our Saviour having delivered his doctrine to the people, confirms his doctrine with a miracle, and with such a miracle as did at once instruct and encourage his apostles; the miraculous number of fish which they caught did presage and prefigure their miraculous success in preaching, planting, and propagating, the gospel.
Observe, 2. Our Saviour’s command to Peter, and his ready compliance with Christ’s command: Let down your nets for a draught, says Christ: We have toiled all night, says St. Peter, and caught nothing: nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.
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This mystically represents to us. 1. That the fishers of men may labor all night, and all day too, and catch nothing.
This is sometimes the fisherman’s fault, but oftener the fishes’. It is the fisher’s fault that nothing is taken, if he doth only play upon the sands, and not launch out into the deep; deliver some superficial and less necessary truths, without opening to the people the great mysteries of godliness. If they fish with broken nets, either deliver unsound doctrine, or lead unexemplary lives. If they do not cast the net on the right side of the ship: that is, rightly divide the word, as workmen that need not to be ashamed.
And if they do not fish at Christ’s command, but run a fishing unsent, it is then no wonder that they labor all their days and catch nothing. But very often it is the fishes’ fault, rather than the fisherman’s: worldly men are crafty and cunning, they will not come near the net; hypocrites are slippery, like eels, the fishermen cannot long hold them, but they dart into their holes; priding themselves in their external performances, and satisfying themselves with a round of duties.
The great men of the world break through the net, the divine commands cannot bind them. I will go to the great men, and speak to them; but they have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. Jer 5:5
Observe, 3. The miraculous success which St. Peter had, when at Christ’s command he let down the net: They inclosed such a multitude of fishes that their net brake.
Two things our Saviour aimed at in this miracle, 1. To manifest to his disciples the power of his Godhead, that they might not be offended at the poverty and meanness of his manhood.
2. To assure them of the great success which his apostles and their successors might expect in planting and propagating of the gospel. If the ministers of Christ, whom he calls fishers of men, be faithful in the cast, his power shall be magnified in the draught.
Some of our fish will cleave eternally to the rocks, others play upon the sands, more will wallow in the mud, and continue all their days in the filth of sin, if our Master at whose command we let down the net, does not inclose them in it, as well as assist us in the casting of it.
Observe, 4. What influence the sight of this miracle had upon St. Peter: it occasioned fear and amazement, and caused him to adore Christ, and declare himself unworthy of his presence; Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Not that the good man was weary of Christ’s presence, but acknowledged himself unworthy of it. It is a great discovery of our holiness, to revere God, and fear before him, when he does wonderuful things before us, though they be wonders of love and mercy: here was a wonderful appearance of Christ’s power and mercy to St. Peter, but it affects him with a reverential fear and awful astonishment.
Observe, 5. How St. Peter and the rest of the apostles, at Christ’s call, forsook all and followed him: they left father and friends, ships and nets, and followed Jesus. Whom Christ calls, he calls effectually; he draws whom he calls, and works their heart to a ready compliance to their duty. And although when they were first called to be disciples, they followed their trades of fishing for a time, yet upon their second call to the apostleship, they left off their trade, and forsook all to follow the ministry; teaching the minsters of the gospel, that it is their duty to give themselves wholly up to their great work, and not to encumber themselves with secular affairs and worldy business.
Nothing but an indispensable nccessity in providing for a family can excuse a minister’s incumbering himself with worldly concerns and business: They forsook all, and followed Jesus.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Now when he had left speaking,.... Teaching the people,…
Now when he had left speaking,.... Teaching the people, and preaching the word of God unto them out of the ship, as they stood on the shore before him.
He said unto Simon, launch out into the deep; he spoke to Simon Peter, being the master of the vessel, to thrust it out, or put it off further into deep water, more convenient for fishing;
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and let down your nets for a draught; of fishes: his meaning is, that he would give orders to his servants, to put out the vessel to sea, to take their nets and cast them into the sea, in order to take and draw up a quantity of fish, which was their business.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Launch, out - Go out with your vessels.
Launch, out - Go out with your vessels.
Into the deep - Into the sea; at a distance from the shore.
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For a draught - A draught of fish; or let down your nets for the “taking” of fish.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Greek: Epanagage eis to bathos. Put back from whence…
Greek: Epanagage eis to bathos. Put back from whence you have just now returned. Where you failed without Christ, with Christ you will prove successful. Now is the proper time, when you act in my presence, and according to my orders; before it was not, when you followed your own, and not my will. (Maldonatus) --- St. Augustine interprets the text, Launch out into the deep, as spoken of distant nations, to whom the gospel was afterwards delivered: tolle signum in gentes, ad eas, quæ prope, et ad eas quæ longe. (Isaias v. 26. and xi. 12.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain for a draught--munificent recompense for the use of his…
for a draught--munificent recompense for the use of his boat.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Left speaking—Sermon was over, and the satisfied crowd…
4. Left speaking—Sermon was over, and the satisfied crowd departing.
Into the deep—Where would be a larger shoal of fishes.
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Nets—They were probably seines. The seine has its lower margin loaded, so as to reach toward the bottom, and the upper fringed with corks, so that the net forms a perpendicular wall in the water. Fastening one end at the shore, the fisherman launches out into the deep and lets the net into the water, and, fetching a semicircle, enclosing the fish within its compass, returns to the shore at the point from which he started. With an overwhelming amount of fishes, he would need aid to drag the net and its contents to the shore or boat. Dr. Thomson thinks it was a bag-net, let down like a basket into the water; but how large must the bag have been to enclose fish enough to nearly sink the two boats?
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 4. when he had left speaking] The aorist implies…
4. when he had left speaking] The aorist implies that no sooner was His sermon ended than He at once thought, not of His own fatigue, but of His poor disappointed followers.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (4) Let down your nets.—It is, perhaps, a slight…
(4) Let down your nets.—It is, perhaps, a slight indication that the narrative of St. Luke does not give the same event as the other Gospels, that they use a different word for “net,” and one that has, technically, quite a distinct meaning. St. Luke’s word, however, is generic, and may therefore include the other; and the other two use it when they speak of the disciples leaving their “nets.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And let down your nets for a draught. Not…
And let down your nets for a draught. Not necessarily a miraculous draught; it was probably a supernatural knowledge which the Lord had of a shoal of fish to be found in the spot indicated by him to the fishermen. Tristram ("Natural History of the Bible") says, "The thickness of the shoals of fish is almost incredible to any one who has not witnessed them. They often cover an area of more than an acre, and when the fish move slowly forward in a mass, and are rising out of the water, they are packed so close together that it appears as if a heavy rain was beating down on the surface of the water.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 4-6. Weary workers.
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The passage is one of encouragement to-those who have been labouring in the cause of truth and righteousness, and whose success has not been according to their hope. We have a picture of
I FRUITLESS TOIL. "We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing;" words that have not only been on the lips of the unsuccessful fisherman, but often enough on those of the weary Christian workman the pastor, the evangelist, the teacher, the philanthropist, the missionary. Weeks, months, even years, may go by, and nothing or little may have resulted. Especially is this the case in missionary labour among savages, or where venerable systems of superstition prevail. The workman goes through all stages, of lessened hope, of surprise at non-success, of disappointment, of despondency, until he may get down very near to despair.
II THE COMMAND TO CONTINUE. Under discouragement and apparent defeat there frequently enters the thought of abandonment. The worker says, "I will lay down my weapon; it is useless to proceed. I must have better soil, or it must have a more skilful hand." But when this thought is being entertained there comes a manifestation of the Master, who by some means and in some language, says, "Go, labour on: toil on and faint not." To the "fisher of men" he says, "Let down your nets for a draught." This command to continue may cause us to reflect upon:
1. Our Lord"s own example; for he laboured on most diligently and patiently under heavy and sore discouragements.
2. The ample means placed at our disposal with which to work for Christ and men; the glorious fulness and fitness of the gospel of the grace of God.
3. The near presence and promised aid of the Holy Spirit.
4. The inestimable value of the souls we seek to save. But whencesoever suggested, the voice we hear is imperative, Divine, Go, labour on.
III THE SPIRIT AND ACT OF OBEDIENCE.
1. We may be indisposed to resume; we may feel, as Peter evidently did on this occasion, that there is nothing to be taken by our toil; that for all practical purposes we might as well leave the field.
2. But Christ"s will is decisive. Against that there is no appeal. "At thy word I will let down the net." This is the true spirit of obedience. To work for Christ under every possible encouragement is easy and simple enough; perhaps it may not take high rank in heaven so far as its spiritual greatness is concerned. To continue at our post under every discouragement, because we believe it is the will of our Lord that we should still strive and sow that is the trying, the honourable, the acceptable thing. It may be remarked that:
3. Obedience to our Lord is not inconsistent with a wise change of method. Launch out "into the deep." They were to cast their net into the likeliest waters. "Cast after cast, by force or guile, All waters must be tried. (See Keble"s hymn, "The livelong night we"ve toil"d in vain.")
If one method does not succeed, we must try another. We must not ascribe to God a failure which is due to our own inefficiency. We must not ask and expect his blessing unless we are doing our best in his Name and in his cause.
IV THE LARGE REWARD. "When they had this done," etc. Patient, obedient work wrought for Jesus Christ will certainly meet with its recompense. "Refrain thine eyes from tears, and thy voice from weeping, for thy work shall be rewarded." We may "go forth weeping," but we shall doubtless "come again with rejoicing." The success may come:
1. After much labour and prayer and waiting.
2. In a way in which we did not expect it.
3. Only in part while we are here to rejoice in it; for often "one soweth and another reapeth." But sooner or later, in one form or another, here or hereafter, it will come; our net will "enclose a great multitude of fishes;" our hearts will be full, even to overflow, with joy and gratitude. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Launch out into the deep, and let down your…
Luk_5:4
Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught
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Out of the deep
I.
RECALL THE HISTORIC EVENT.
1. It is not work that tries men and women, half as much as it is the disappointment which unsuccess brings.
2. The best and only real recreation which any soul can find is that which comes from resting in the Lord, and in abiding patiently upon Him, in the faith that He doeth all things well, even when He asks us to labour on without finding any immediate reward.
II. CHRIST TAKES HIS PEOPLE INTO THE DEEP. There was in the crisis hour of St. Peters personal history a striking coincidence between his outward and his inward experience--a parable of all Divine dealings with men.
1. Think of the present attitude of the world towards revealed truth. It shrinks from launching out into the deep. The prevailing tendency is towards the superficial rather than the substantial. We aim at greatness instead of thoroughness. Men have pushed their investigations in every direction; but they are disposed to stop just where the problem deepens into anything like mystery, and where faith must take the place of sight. Whenever I meet with one of these flippant retailers of modern objections to Holy Scripture, and hear him making light of revealed truth, and ventilating with imperiousness his opinion that the Bible is largely a myth, I always feel like asking such a man: My friend, have you ever pushed out from the shallow into the depth of these questions? Have ever your knees touched the waters of Gods mighty sea? Have you ever gone, alone with Christ, away from the shore and its noisy multitude, to where His waves are mountains?
2. In the workings and leadings of His providence, God sometimes takes us out of the region of shallow, everyday experiences, into those which are very deep and solemn. There are depths of sorrow, of affliction, and doubt and depression, of poverty and bodily sickness, of temptation, of penitence and shame, and of spiritual weakness; and some of them are mysterious, unfathomable. There is, in such cases, no use in trying to see bottom. Now and then the soul is tempted to think that chance, or accident, or lack of foresight, or an enemy of some kind, has lured him out there, just to drown him or to fill him with terror, Nay, it was a loving Guide who led you thither. (E. E. Johnson, M. A.)
Advancement in prayer
Prayer has small beginnings; but it should be progressive, never stationary. It is a science needing practice, and practice in it, as in other sciences, will make perfect. Our Lord bade St. Peter thrust out a little from the land; then He made him launch out into the deep. Our first prayers are a thrusting out a little from the land, a little disengagement of the thoughts, of the affections, from earth. But if we would gain anything, we must not rest satisfied with this, but must, at Christs word, launch forth into the deep of spiritual communion with God.
I. Prayer, to be efficacious, must be RECOLLECTED. All the powers of the mind must be drawn off from other matters, and concentrated on Him whom you are addressing. The wandering imagination has to be recalled from those objects about which it plays, like a butterfly round garden flowers, that it may rest on God. The memory is called away from the affairs of ourselves, that it may be used to supply food for the meditation in which we are engaged. The understanding is withdrawn from musing and irrelevant objects, that it may reason and reflect on the matter of our prayer and on the nature of Him to whom we pray. Finally, the will, which runs after a thousand objects which it desires, loves, and takes pleasure in, is fixed on God, and strives to conform itself to the Divine will, producing affections and forming resolutions such as the subject of meditation and devotion exacts.
II. Prayer should be DISENGAGED. After St. Peter had received Jesus into his vessel, he thrust out a little from the land. So, in prayer, the thoughts which are attached to earth, like the moorings of a boat, must be flung loose, or the vessel cannot put to sea.
III. Prayer must be EARNEST. While disengagement resembles a sportsman raising his gun to his shoulder, and recollection represents him sighting his object, earnestness is the charge of powder with which his gun is loaded.
IV. Prayer must be DEFINITE. Vague prayer without a purpose is never very earnest, nor can it be effectual. A good plan is to take one grace at a time, and ask for that, then another, and so on. Definiteness is the bullet to hit the mark.
V. Prayer must be PERSEVERING. This proves that we are in earnest, that we really desire that for which we ask. (S. Baring. Gould, M. A.)
Launching out into the deep
We have toiled in the narrows too long, and have taken little by our toil. Look round you in this nineteenth century of Christendom, and survey what ought to be a kingdom of heaven. We must launch out into the deep, the great human deep, which is in Christs dominion, and not in the devils, and let down our nets for a draught. We have learnt wisdom perhaps from our faults, our follies, our failures. The Church has toiled in the shallows surrounding her coasts among the souls she could get within her pale. But rarely has man, in his simple human relations and activities, been suffered to feel that as man he was dear to Christ, and a subject of His kingdom. The great evangelical movement began with a noble attempt to fulfil this command. The evangelists saved our State. Voltaire wrote to dAlembert, when the revolutionary yeast was beginning to work: We have never pretended to enlighten the cobblers and the maid-servants; we leave that to the apostles. In a few years those cobblers and maid-servants were flooding the gutters of Paris with the best blood of France; while in England the apostles had tamed them. But the evangelical movement, as the years passed on, shut itself up more and more to its Churches, and treated the great human world, the world of secular thought, activity, and interest, as quite outside its pale. Christ points us to the broad ocean, the great human deep--the relations, the energies, the industries, and the interests, the thoughts, and the sympathies of men, in their physical, intellectual, social, and political life; these we claim for His kingdom, these be it ours to win to His love. Instead of saving souls out of the world, let us save the world with the souls in it. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)
Encouragement to work for God, though unsuccessful
1. Have we to contend in our work with a feeling of its having been fruitless? In the case of sensible labour, there always is some result. How different, on the contrary, is the case of the labourer in the world of mind! Does the feeling of the fruitlessness of our spiritual work oppress and summon us to conflict, or do we bear it lightly? There arc men who know this feeling very well, but, in a certain measure, feel comfortable in it.
2. If the feeling of dejection is now threatening to overcome us, let us not indulge it; let us ask rather how to change it into the joyful confidence of success! And whither shall we go? Where Peter went; with Jesus we find help. The same Peter who now complains, Lord, we have toiled, &c., how differently he had, a few moments after, to judge! But still more. Had he not laboured in vain, the Lord had not found him, nor he the Lord. We see here, in a very evident example, how deceitful the feeling of fruitlessness is, and how we should not let ourselves be taken in by it. But not only that--we have also a security for it that labour for spiritual purposes can never be in vain. (Professor Rothe.)
Fishing too near shore
Launch out into the deep.
I. This Divine counsel comes, first, to all those who are paddling in THE MARGIN OF BIBLE RESEARCH. My father read the Bible through three times after he was eighty years of age, and without spectacles; not for the mere purpose of saying he had been through it so often, but for his eternal profit. John Colby, the brother-in-law of Daniel Webster, learned to read after he was eighty-four years of age, in order that he might become acquainted with the Scriptures. There is no book in the world that demands so much of our attention as the Bible. Yet nine-tenths of Christian men get no more than ankle-deep. Walk all up and down this Bible domain! Try every path. Plunge in at the prophecies, and come out at the epistles. Go with the patriarchs, until you meet the evangelists. Rummage and ransack, as children who are not satisfied when they come to a new house, until they know what is in every room, and into what every door opens. Open every jewel-casket. Examine the sky-lights. For ever be asking questions. Put to a higher use than was intended the Oriental proverb, Hold all the skirts of thy mantle extended when Heaven is raining gold. The sea of Gods Word is not like Gennesaret, twelve miles by six, but boundless; and in any one direction you can sail on for ever. Why, then, confine yourself to a short psalm, or to a few verses of an epistle? The largest fish are not near the shore. Sail away, oh ye mariners, for eternity! Launch out into the deep.
II. The text is appropriate to all CHRISTIANS OF SHALLOW EXPERIENCE. Doubts and fears have in our day been almost elected to the Parliament of Christian graces. Doubts and fears are not signs of health, but festers and carbuncles. You have a valuable house or farm. It is suggested that the title is not good. You employ counsel. You have the deeds examined. You search the record for mortgages, judgments, and liens. You are not satisfied until you have a certificate, signed by the great Seal of the State, assuring you that the title is good. Yet how many leave their title to heaven an undecided matter! Christian character is to come up to higher standards. We have now to hunt through our library to find one Robert MCheyne, or one Edward Payson, or one Harlan Page. The time will come when we will find half a dozen of them sitting in the same seat with us. The grace of God can make a great deal better men than those I have mentioned. Christians seem afraid they will get heterodox by going too far.
III. The text is appropriate to all who ARE ENGAGED IN CHRISTIAN WORK. The Church of God has been fishing along the shore. We set our net in a good, calm place, and in sight of a fine chapel, and we go down every Sunday to see if the fish have been wise enough to come into our net. We might learn something from that boy with his hook and line. He throws his line from the bridge: no fish. He sits down on a log: no fish. He stands in the sunlight and casts the line: but no fish. He goes up by the mill-dam, and stands behind the bank, where the fish cannot see him, and he has hardly dropped the hook before the cork goes under. The fish come to him as fast as he can throw them ashore. In other words, in our Christian work, why do we not go where the fish are? It is not so easy to catch souls in church, for they know that we are trying to take them. With the Bible in one pocket, and the hymn-book in another pocket, and a loaf of bread under your arm, launch out into the great deep of this worlds wretchedness.
IV. The text is appropriate TO ALL THE UNFORGIVEN. Every sinner in this house would come to God if he thought that he might come just as he is. People talk as though the pardon of God were a narrow river, like the Kennebec or the Thames, and that their sin draws too much water to enter it. No; it is not a river, nor a bay, but a sea. I should like to persuade you to launch out into the great deep of Gods mercy. I am a merchant. I have bought a cargo of spices in India. I have, through a bill of exchange, paid for the whole cargo. You are a ship-captain. I give you the orders, and say, Bring me those spices. You land in India. You go to the trader and say, Here are the orders; and you find everything all right. You do not stop to pay the money yourself. It is not your business to pay it. The arrangements were made before you started. So Christ purchases your pardon. He puts the papers, or the promises, into your hand. Is it wise to stop and say, I cannot pay for my redemption? God does not ask you to pay. Relying on what has been done, launch out into the deep. (Dr. Talmage.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 4, 5. Put out into the deep. Deep water.…
4, 5. Put out into the deep. Deep water. For a draught. He thus promises one.
At thy word. Though he had fished all night in vain, at Christ's word he would try again. He already was a disciple of Christ (John 1:40–42).
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Luke
INSTRUCTIONS FOR FISHERMEN
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Luk 5:4.
The day’s work begins early in the East. So the sun, as it rose above the hills on the other side of the lake, shone down upon a busy scene, fresh with the dew and energy of the morning, on the beach by the little village of Bethsaida. One group of fishermen was washing their nets, their boats being hauled up on the strand. A crowd of listeners was thus early gathered round the Teacher; but the fishermen, who were His disciples, seem to have gone on with their work, never minding Christ or the crowd. It is sometimes quite as religious to be washing nets as to be listening to Christ’s teaching.
The incident which follows the words of my text, and which is called the first miraculous draught of fishes, is stamped by our Lord Himself with a symbolic purpose; for at the end of it He says: ‘Fear not! from henceforth thou shalt catch men.’ And that flings back a flood of light on the whole story; and not only warrants but obliges us to take it as being by Him intended for the instruction in their Christian work of these four whom He has chosen to be His workers. However many of our Lord’s miracles may not come under this category of symbolism {and I, for my part, do not believe that there are any of them which do not}, this one clearly does. We have His own commentary to compel us to interpret its features as meaning something beyond what appears on the surface. I take it, then, that we have here a first vivid code of instructions which our Lord gives to all His servants who do work for Him; and I wish to look at the various stages of this incident from that point of view.
If there are any of my hearers who think to themselves, ‘Ah, well! he is not going to say anything that I have anything to do with,’ so much the worse for you, if you are not a Christian; or, so much the worse for you if, being a Christian, you are not an active servant. Jesus Christ had four disciples who were fishermen, and out of them He made four fishers of men. The obligation is universal.
I. The Law of Service.
‘Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.’ Now there is nothing more remarkable in the whole narrative than the matter-of-course fashion in which our Lord takes the disposal of these men, and orders them about. It is not explicable unless we fall back upon what Luke does not tell us, but John does, in his Gospel, that this was by no means the first time that He had come across Peter and Andrew his brother, or James and John his brother. We do not need to trouble ourselves with the chronological question how long before they had been drawn to Him at the fords of Jordan by the witness of John the Baptist, and by the witness of some of them to the others. The relationship had been then commenced which is presupposed by our Lord’s authoritative tone here. It leads in the incident of my text to a closer discipleship, which did not admit of Simon and John hauling or cleaning their nets any more. They had been disciples before in a certain loose fashion, a fashion which permitted them to go home and look after their ordinary avocations. Hence-forward they were disciples in a much more stringent fashion. It was because they had already said ‘Rabbi! Thou art the Son of God! Thou art the King of Israel,’ that this strange imperative command, inexplicable, except by the supplement of the last of the four Gospels, came from Christ’s lips and secured immediate obedience.
If we thus understand that His authority follows on our discipleship, and that the words of my text, first of all, insist upon and assert His right to command and absolutely dispose of the activities, resources, and persons of all His disciples, we have learned something that we only need to practise in order to make our lives noble with a strange nobility, and blessed and sweet with an unearthly sanctity and blessedness.
Further, the words of my text not only declare for us thus the absolute authority of Jesus Christ over all His disciples, but also reveal His sweet promise and gracious assurance that He cares to guide, to direct, to prescribe spheres, to determine methods, to lead those who docilely look to Him and wait upon Him, in paths in which their activity may most profitably be employed for Him and for His Church. If there is anything that is declared to us plainly in the Scriptures, with regard to the relationships between men and Jesus Christ, it is this, that a docile heart will always be a guided heart, partly by inward whispers, which only they disbelieve who limit God in His relation to men, beyond what they have a right to do; and partly by outward providences which only they disbelieve who limit God in His power over the external world, beyond what they have a right to do. He will guide, sometimes with His eye, to which the loving eye flashes back response; sometimes with His whispered word, when the noises of earth and the pulsations of self-will are stilled; sometimes with His rod, which the less sensitive of His sons do often need; sometimes by successes in paths that we venture upon tentatively and timidly; and sometimes by failures in paths into which we rush confidently and presumptuously; but always, the waiting heart is a guided heart, and if we listen we shall hear ‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’ And sometimes it is God’s will that we should make mistakes, for these too help us to learn His will.
But, further, and more particularly, I do not think that I am unduly reading too much meaning into this story, if I ask you to put emphasis upon one word, ‘Launch out into the deep.’ As long as you keep pottering along, a boat’s length from the shore, you will only catch little fishes. The big ones, and the heavy takes are away out yonder. Go out there, if you want to get them. Which, being translated, is this-The same spirit of daring enterprise, which is a condition of success in secular matters, is no less potent a factor in the success of Christian men in their enterprises for Jesus Christ. As long as we keep Him down, within the limits of use and wont, and are horribly afraid of anything that our great-grandfathers did not use to do, there will be very few fish in the bottom of the boat.
Oh, brethren! if one thinks of the world into which it has been God’s providence to put us, a world all seething with new aspirations and unrest-if we think of the condition of the great city in which we live, which is only a specimen of the cities of England, and of the tragical insufficiency of Christian enterprise and effort, as compared with the overwhelming masses of the community, surely, surely, there is nothing more wanted to make Christian people wake up from their old jog-trot habits, and cast themselves with new earnestness, new daring and enterprise, into forms of service which conscience and sober wisdom may approve. Of course, I do not forget that any such new methods must each approve themselves at the tribunal of the Christian consciousness. It is no part of my business here to descend into details and particulars, but I do want to lay on my own heart, and especially on the hearts of the members of the church of which I have the honour to be the pastor, and also upon all other Christian people whom my voice may reach, the solemn responsibility which the conditions of life in our generation lay upon Christian men and women, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets.’ I believe, for my part, that if all the good, God-fearing, Christ-loving men and women in Manchester were to hear this voice sounding in their ears, and to obey it, they would change the face of the city.
II. The Response.
Peter, characteristically, speaks out, and says exactly what a fisherman would be likely to say to a carpenter from Nazareth, that came down to teach him his business. The landsman would not know what the fisherman knew well enough, that it was useless to go fishing in the morning if you had not caught anything all night. There was very little chance of getting any better success when the sun’s rays were glinting on the surface of the water.
‘We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.’ Experience said, ‘No! do not.’ Christ said, ‘Yes! do.’ And so when Peter has made a clean breast of his objection, founded on experience, he goes on with the consent prompted by the devotion and consecration of love, ‘nevertheless.’ A great word that. ‘We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word we will let down the net. So here goes.’ And away they went, breakfastless perhaps, with their nets half cleaned, and sleepy and tired with the night’s work.
Here, then, we see obedience that springs delighted to obey, because it is impelled by love. That is the spirit which can be trusted to go out into the deep, which does not ask whether things are recognised and usual or not, but which, if once it is sure of the Lord’s will, takes no counsel of anything else. How should it, seeing that there is nothing so delightsome to a heart that truly loves as to know and do the will of its beloved? And that, dear brethren, is the spirit that all we Christian people need-a deeper, more vivid, more continual, soul-subduing, muscle-straining consciousness that Jesus Christ ‘loved me and gave Himself for me.’ Then His whisper will be like thunder, and the motto of our lives will be ‘At Thy word, I will!’ Further, here is obedience that was not in the least degree depressed by the recognition of past failure. All night long they had been dropping the net overboard, and drawing it in, and with horny, wet hands seeking in its meshes, and finding nothing. Then overboard with it again, and more pulling at the heavy sweeps, till the dawn began to show, and all in vain. Now the weary task must be done all over again, though in all the past hours though they were the best, there has been only failure.
I think that our Christian courage and consecration would be immensely increased, if we could learn the lesson of my text; and feel that, however often in the past I may have broken down, the word of Christ’s command, which thrills into my will, is also the word of Christ’s promise which should stay my heart, and give me the assurance that past defeat shall be converted into future victory.
There is an obedience which did not grudge fresh toil before the effect of past toils had been quite got over. The nets, as I said, were only half cleaned. It was a pity to begin and dirty them again. The fishers had had a very hard night’s toil. If they had been like some of us they would have said, ‘Oh! I have been working hard all the night. I cannot possibly do any more this morning.’ ‘I am so very busy with my business all the week, that it is perfectly absurd to talk about my teaching in a Sunday-school.’ That was not their spirit at all. No matter how they had to rub their eyes to get the sleep out of them, they just bundled the nets into the boat once more, pushed her down the strand, and shoved her out into the blue waters at Christ’s bidding. And that is the sort of workmen that He wants, and that you and I should be.
Further, we have here an obedience that kept the Master’s word sounding in its heart whilst it was at work. ‘At Thy word will I let down the net.’
Ah! we very often begin working with a very pure motive, and as we go on, the motive gradually oozes away, and what was begun in the spirit is continued in the flesh; and what was begun with a true devotion to Jesus Christ is continued because we were doing it yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and because it is the custom to do it. So we go on. The heart having all gone out of our service, the blessing is gone out of it too. But if we will keep our hearts near that Lord and listen to His voice calling us, wearied or not wearied, beaten before or not beaten before, and do as He bids us, launch out into the deep, we shall not toil in vain.
III. The result.
Christ’s command ever includes His promise. Work done for Him is never resultless. True, His most faithful servants have often to say, if they look at their few sheaves with the eye of sense, ‘I have spent my strength for nought.’ True, the Apostolic experience is, at the best, but too exactly repeated, ‘Some believed, and some believed not.’ Christ’s Gospel always produces its twofold effect, being ‘a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.’ If the great Sower, when He went forth to sow, expected but a fourth part of the seed to fall into good ground, His servants need look for no larger results. But still it remains true that honest, earnest work for Jesus, wisely planned and prayerfully carried out with self-oblivion and self-surrender, will not be unblessed. If our labour is ‘in the Lord,’ it will not be ‘in vain.’ Just as pain is a danger signal, pointing to mischief at work on the body, so failure in achieving the results of Christian service is, for the most part, an indication of something wrong in method or spirit.
But, if we are toiling in loving obedience to Christ’s voice, and seeking His direction as to sphere and manner of service, we may be quite sure of this, that whether we get, immediately or no, the outward and visible results which this incident promises to all who fulfil the conditions, we shall get the results which were symbolised in the second form of this miraculous draught of fishes. For, if you remember, there was another incident at the end of Christ’s life, modelled upon this one, and equally significant, though in a different fashion. On that occasion, when the disciples had been toiling all the night, and saw, in the dim twilight of the morning, the questionable figure standing on the shore there, they were bidden to bring of the fish that they had caught, and when they came to land they saw a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread; and His voice said, ‘Come, and eat!’ Blessed are the workers that work for the Master, for living they shall not be left without His blessing, and dying, ‘they rest from their labours’-by the side of that mysterious fire, and Christ-provided food-’and their works do follow them, in that they bring of the fish which they have caught.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The miraculous draught:
The miraculous draught:
v. 4. Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
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v. 5. And Simon, answering, said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net.
v. 6. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes; and their net brake.
v. 7. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
The discourse of the Lord may have taken up the greater part of the forenoon. But now He made a pause in His speaking, and addressed Simon, who was probably at the helm, with a peculiar request, which sounded like an arbitrary demand. Peter should launch out far, he should take his boat out to the place where the sea was deep, away from the shore. These first words were addressed to Peter alone, as the master of the vessel; but the second part, describing the manner of taking the fish, is directed to all the men in the boat. Jesus thus took charge of the boat and directed its disposal, as though He were the owner. It was a test of Peter’s faith and trust in the Lord. The answer of Simon indicated the greatest respect for the Man who thus unceremoniously took charge of his affairs. He calls Him Master, the Greek word being used of a prefect or of one that is set over certain persons or affairs, a title of respect which did not imply a personal relation. He does not register an objection, but merely states as a fact that they have worked hard all night and have caught nothing. They had plied their trade at the time and under the conditions which experience had shown them to be the most favorable, at night, and on the benches of the lake not far from the shore. But all his fisherman’s experience and theory Peter is willing to bring as a sacrifice to his faith in the words of Jesus. There are several lessons to note here. "Therefore thou must learn these things well that thou mayest work and hope, even if He should delay the matter for some time; for though He lets thee wait and labor in perspiration, and thou thinkest thy work is lost, yet thou must be prudent and learn to know thy God and to trust in Him. For we see in this gospel how God cares for them that are His, and keeps them both in body and soul. If we but get to the point that we freely trust Him, then things cannot be wanting, then God pours us full of bodily and spiritual goods, and with such an abounding treasure that we may help all people. That surely means making the poor people rich and feeding the hungry. " Luther also shows that disappointments and failures in the work of our calling should not discourage us entirely, whether it be in the training of children, if we have but been faithful, or in positions of authority, or in the government of the Church. "And, to summarize, the entire human being and life is constituted thus, that one must often have worked long and much for nothing, until God finally gives the increase; and therefore the work shall not be omitted, nor any person found without work, but expect the increase and blessing from God, when He wants to give it, Ecc 11:6
Simon’s faith was richly rewarded. For when they followed the directions of Jesus, their net enclosed a great quantity of fish, and it began to tear. Pulling with all their might, they had no breath to waste in calling, so they anxiously waved to their companions in the other boat that they should come and help them. And so great was the catch that both boats were filled with fish to such a point that there was danger of their sinking under the load; they were all but submerged. It was such an obvious miracle that they all were astounded.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 When he had finished speaking
When he had finished speaking
"When Jesus had finished teaching the people"
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at your word
"because you have told me to do this"
motioned
They were too far from shore to call, so they made gestures, probably by waving their arms.
they began to sink
"the boats began to sink." The reason could be stated clearly. AT: "the boats began to sink because the fish were so heavy" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Peter
lord
word
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 5:4 let down your nets to catch some fish:…
5:4 let down your nets to catch some fish: Peter was naturally skeptical when a rabbi told fishermen how to catch fish. Jesus’ command was odd for three reasons: (1) When the sun came up, the fish moved to the bottom of the lake (which is why they fished at night); (2) they fished with a heavy dragnet hung over the side of the boat by two men (or between two boats) and could not go deep with it; (3) they had just fished all night with no results, and the prospects were now much more unlikely.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.