Matthew Chapter 4 verse 19 Holy Bible
And he saith unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men.
read chapter 4 in ASV
And he said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.
read chapter 4 in BBE
and he says to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men."
read chapter 4 in WEB
and he saith to them, `Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men,'
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - Follow me; come ye after me (Revised Version); δεῦτε ὀπίσω μου. There is no thought of continuous following from place to place (ἀκολουθεῖν) , but of immediate detachment from the present sphere of their interest and of attachment to Jesus as their leader. And I will make you fishers of men; Mark, "to become fishers of men," laying more stress on the change in their character necessary for success in this new kind of fishing. Luke 5:10 brings out the change in the nature of the work(ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν). Fishers. The word suggests care, patience, skill, besides habits of life fitted for endurance of privation and fatigue. The same promise is, as it seems, related in Luke 5:10, where notice: (1) It is connected with the miracle of the draught of fishes. (2) It is not verbally identical with this: Μὴ φοβοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἀνθρώπους ἔσῃ ζωγρῶν. (3) The words are addressed individually to Simon.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) Follow me.--The command came, as we have seen, to those who were not unprepared. Short as it was, it was in some sense the first parable in our Lord's teaching, the germ of an actual parable (Matthew 13:47). It suggested a whole circle of thoughts. The sea is the troubled and evil world (Isaiah 57:20), and the souls of men are the fish that have to be caught and taken from it, and the net is the Church of Christ. The figure had been used before (Jeremiah 16:16), but then it had presented its darker aspect, and the "fishers of men" were their captors and enslavers. The earliest extant hymn of the Church, by Clement of Alexandria, dwells on the image with a rich and suggestive playfulness. Christ is thus addressed:--"Fisher of men, the blest,Out of the world's unrest,Out of sin's troubled seaTaking us, Lord, to Thee;Out of the waves of strife, . . .
