Biblion Bible Commentary
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Fishers of Men
Matthew 4:18-22
18 Walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers: Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. · WEB
Told in almost the same words as the earliest account; what is Matthew's own is one name given early and one detail left out.
He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men" Matthew 4:19.
The call of the four runs so closely to the earliest telling Mark 1:16–20 that the differences are a matter of a phrase. Two of them are worth naming.
The first is that Matthew introduces the fisherman as Simon, who is called Peter Matthew 4:18 at the moment of the call, long before the scene at Caesarea Philippi where the name is given and explained Matthew 16:18. The reader is told from the outset what he will become, which is this Gospel's habit — the same instinct that names the child Immanuel in chapter one and lets the last verse of the book answer it.
The second is a subtraction. The earlier account mentions that Zebedee was left in the boat with the hired servants, and Matthew says only that they left the boat and their father Matthew 4:22. The detail about the hired men softens the departure — the family business was not left short-handed. Without it, what stands is the cost: a boat, a father, and an immediate going.
They immediately left their nets and followed him Matthew 4:20.
What both tellings share is the pace, and it is the point of the passage. A word, and a trade abandoned mid-cast.
settled What this mark means