What Does Luke 5:4 Mean in the King James?
Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Greek says “into the depth”, a destination, not merely a setting, where the nets descend before the catch appears.
THE MEANING
The passage lives in the interval after speech and before evidence: Simon moves into the depth and lowers his nets while the catch remains unseen. It meets you in that same interval, when what has been heard becomes movement but its result is not yet visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that visible results must come before movement: here the nets go down before the catch appears.
THE ROOT
βάθος
bathos
GROWS FROM
βαθ-
Depth; the condition of being deep.
In Greek, “deep” is the noun βάθος (bathos, “depth”), and the phrase moves into it. Depth becomes a place the boat enters, not just a quality of the water.
ALSO GROWS
bathys: deep
βαθύς
This adjective shares the βαθ- stem with βάθος, naming the quality that the verse makes a destination.
batheōs: deeply
βαθέως
This adverb carries the same depth family into the manner of an action, showing the word’s reach beyond a place.
χαλάσατε
chalasate
GROWS FROM
χαλα-
Loosen, slacken, lower.
“let down” in this verse is chalasate. The verb for lowering the nets carries the sense of slackening or loosening. The net gathers as it descends from the boat into water, where what the surface conceals can be caught.
ALSO GROWS
chalaō: lower, let down, loosen
χαλάω
This is the verb’s base form; it makes the descent of the nets an act of lowering rather than simply casting them outward.
chalaros: loose, slack
χαλαρός
This related word preserves the loosening sense within the same word family.
THE PATTERN
What is cast onto the waters may return as a catch beyond the moment of casting.
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:THE THREAD
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!Luke’s βάθος (bathos, “depth”) and Paul’s βάθος (bathos, “depth”) are the same Greek noun. Luke sends a boat into physical depth; Romans uses the word for what cannot be searched out, widening the image toward what exceeds immediate knowing.
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