What Does Matthew 4:20 Mean in the King James?
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
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 verb translated “left” also carries the sense of release, the same word-family that can describe forgiveness.
THE MEANING
Following takes visible form in release: what these hands hold is let go, and the body moves after him. The verse keeps the two acts together and makes their order immediate: release, then accompaniment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that following is only inward assent, with no visible release.
THE ROOT
ἀφέντες
aphentes
GROWS FROM
ἀπό + ἵημι (apo + hiēmi, away/from + send or let go)
The verb ἀφίημι (aphiēmi, release or leave) carries the sense of sending or letting go away.
The action is not merely dropping an object: ἀφίημι (aphiēmi, release or leave) also describes releasing a debt or forgiving. The nets are literally left behind, while the verb carries a wider sense of release beneath the scene.
ALSO GROWS
aphesis: Release, including release from debts or sins.
ἄφεσις
This noun from the same word-family shows how the act of leaving can share language with the release of a burden.
aphes: A form of ἀφίημι (aphiēmi, release or leave), used in the sense of forgiving.
ἄφες
The same verb-family can describe leaving nets and releasing an accusation or debt; English gives those acts different words.
THE PATTERN
A changed direction appears as both departure from what is held and movement toward what lies ahead.
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,THE THREAD
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?This verse returns to the same release-and-following pair, now beside the question of what follows from it. Matthew 4:20’s sequence becomes the threshold of a larger reckoning.
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