Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
Cast the Net on the Right Side
John 21:1-14
1 After these things, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself this way. · WEB
Seven men go back to fishing, catch nothing all night, and find breakfast cooking on the beach.
Simon Peter said to them, "I'm going fishing." They told him, "We are also coming with you." They immediately went out and entered into the boat. That night, they caught nothing John 21:3.
The chapter is an epilogue standing outside the frame the book closed two verses ago, and it exists for what happens on the beach.
Peter's announcement has been read as backsliding and it need not be. Men have to eat, and there was no instruction to sit still. What is unmistakable is the flatness of it — the risen Christ has appeared twice, and they are back in a boat on the same lake doing what they did before any of it started.
And they catch nothing, which is the detail that makes the morning what it is.
But when day had already come, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples didn't know that it was Jesus John 21:4. Unrecognized again, as in the garden and on the road to Emmaus.
"Children, have you anything to eat?" They answered him, "No" John 21:5.
The question is the one shouted from every shore to every boat, and the honest monosyllable is what a wasted night produces.
"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 John 21:6.
The instruction is professionally useless — a few feet of water makes no difference — and they do it anyway, from a stranger, after a night of failure. It is the same obedience that filled the jars at Cana and sent a blind man to a pool.
That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It's the Lord!" John 21:7.
The pattern holds: one of them sees first and the other moves first. So when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he wrapped his coat around himself (for he was naked), and threw himself into the sea.
He puts clothes on to swim, which is not sensible and is entirely him. A hundred yards of open water is faster than waiting for a boat when the person on the beach is who it is — and this is the man who denied him at a fire.
So when they got out on the land, they saw a fire of coals there, with fish and bread laid on it John 21:9.
The word for the fire is unusual and this book uses it once before: the charcoal fire in the high priest's courtyard, where Peter stood warming himself John 18:18. Whatever is about to happen on this beach is staged at the same kind of fire, and the man who is about to be asked three questions will have smelled it before he heard them.
And the breakfast is already cooking. He has fish before they bring theirs, which makes the next line a courtesy rather than a necessity.
"Bring some of the fish which you have just caught" John 21:10. He does not need them and asks for them.
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of one hundred fifty-three great fish. Even though there were so many, the net wasn't torn John 21:11.
The number has attracted centuries of arithmetic and the likeliest explanation is the plainest: fishermen count their catch, and somebody remembered. What the writer draws attention to is the net — full past reason and not torn, which is the detail he wants beside the men being sent out to gather.
"Come and eat breakfast!" None of the disciples dared inquire of him, "Who are you?" knowing that it was the Lord John 21:12.
The sentence is beautifully awkward. Nobody asks, and the reason given is that they knew — which means they wanted to ask and could not, and the atmosphere of that meal is in the gap between the two clauses.
Then Jesus came and took the bread, gave it to them, and the fish likewise John 21:13. He serves them, on a beach, at breakfast, which is what he said the returning master would do Luke 12:37 and what he had already done with a basin.
settled What this mark means