What Does Matthew 4:20 Mean?
And straightway they let go of the nets, and followed him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.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.
“let go of” in this verse is aphentes. 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.
And the LORD said to Abram, Go away from your land, from your land of birth, and from your father's house, to the land I will let you see.Therefore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us, setting down every weight and falling short that so easily wraps around us, let us run the race lying before us, remaining under it.Brothers, I do not count myself as having seized it. But this one thing I do, letting go of what lies behind and stretching out toward what lies ahead.THE THREAD
Then Peter answered and said to him, Look, we have let go of all things and followed you. What then will be ours?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.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us