draught of fishes

145:1.1On Fri­day morn­ing of this same week, when Je­sus was teach­ing by the sea­side, the peo­ple crowded him so near the wa­ter’s edge that he sig­naled to some fish­er­men oc­cu­py­ing a near-by boat to come to his res­cue. En­ter­ing the boat, he con­tin­ued to teach the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude for more than two hours. This boat was named “Si­mon”; it was the for­mer fish­ing ves­sel of Si­mon Pe­ter and had been built by Je­sus’ own hands. On this par­tic­u­lar morn­ing the boat was be­ing used by David Zeb­e­dee and two as­so­ciates, who had just come in near shore from a fruit­less night of fish­ing on the lake. They were clean­ing and mend­ing their nets when Je­sus re­quested them to come to his as­sis­tance.

145:1.2Af­ter Je­sus had fin­ished teach­ing the peo­ple, he said to David: “As you were de­layed by com­ing to my help, now let me work with you. Let us go fish­ing; put out into yon­der deep and let down your nets for a draught.” But Si­mon, one of David’s as­sis­tants, an­swered: “Mas­ter, it is use­less. We toiled all night and took noth­ing; how­ever, at your bid­ding we will put out and let down the nets.” And Si­mon con­sented to fol­low Je­sus’ di­rec­tions be­cause of a ges­ture made by his mas­ter, David. When they had pro­ceeded to the place des­ig­nated by Je­sus, they let down their nets and en­closed such a mul­ti­tude of fish that they feared the nets would break, so much so that they sig­naled to their as­so­ciates on the shore to come to their as­sis­tance. When they had filled all three boats with fish, al­most to sink­ing, this Si­mon fell down at Je­sus’ knees, say­ing, “De­part from me, Mas­ter, for I am a sin­ful man.” Si­mon and all who were con­cerned in this episode were amazed at the draught of fishes. From that day David Zeb­e­dee, this Si­mon, and their as­so­ciates for­sook their nets and fol­lowed Je­sus.

145:1.3But this was in no sense a mirac­u­lous draught of fishes. Je­sus was a close stu­dent of na­ture; he was an ex­pe­ri­enced fish­er­man and knew the habits of the fish in the Sea of Gal­i­lee. On this oc­ca­sion he merely di­rected these men to the place where the fish were usu­ally to be found at this time of day. But Je­sus’ fol­low­ers al­ways re­garded this as a mir­a­cle.