Luke 5 Bible study: At your word

The chapter opens by the lake: "Now while the multitude pressed on him and heard the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret" (5:1). Jesus gets into "one of the boats, which was Simon’s" (5:3), and "He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat" (5:3). Then he says to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch" (5:4). Simon answers, "Master, we worked all night and caught nothing; but at your word I will let down the net" (5:5) (tap Master). "When they had done this, they caught a great multitude of fish, and their net was breaking" (5:6), and both boats were filled, "so that they began to sink" (5:7). "But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.”" (5:8). This is the first time Luke calls him Peter. Jesus says to Simon, "Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people alive." (5:10) (tap catching). Here is what almost everyone misses: the catch of "let down your nets for a catch" (5:4) and of "the catch of fish which they had caught" (5:9) is one Greek word, and the catching of "catching people alive" (5:10) is another, a verb Strong's gives as "to take alive". Luke ends the scene in one sentence: "When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything, and followed him" (5:11).

ζωγρέωzogreosay dzogue-REH-o

Strong's: "to take alive". Thayer gives the same first sense, "to take alive", and then, more widely, "to take, catch, capture". Jesus tells Simon, "Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people alive." (5:10). Here is what almost everyone misses: the catch of "let down your nets for a catch" (5:4) and "the catch of fish which they had caught" (5:9) is another word, agra, which Strong's gives as "a catching (of fish)". Mark and Matthew give Jesus's call to the fishermen with the word for a fisherman, halieus: "I will make you into fishers for men" (Mark 1:17) and "I will make you fishers for men" (Matthew 4:19). Luke has that word only for "the fishermen" washing their nets (5:2). The New Testament has zogreo only twice, counted in the Byzantine text the WEB translates; the other is 2 Timothy 2:26.