Mark 1:16-21

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

16 And [as he]^[a] was passing by along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon's brother, casting [a net]^[b] into the sea (for they were fishermen).

17 And Jesus said to them, "{Follow}^[c] me and I will make you become fishers of people."

18 And immediately they left their nets [and]^[d] followed him.

19 And going on a little [farther], he saw James the [son] of Zebedee and his brother John, and they [were] in the boat mending the nets.

20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men [and]^[e] went away after him.

21 And they went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue.^[f]

Mark 1:16-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO MARK

This is the title of the book, the subject of which is the Gospel; a joyful account of the ministry, miracles, actions, and sufferings of Christ: the writer of it was not one of the twelve apostles, but an evangelist; the same with John Mark, or John, whose surname was Mark: John was his Hebrew name, and Mark his Gentile name, Ac 12:12,25, and was Barnabas's sister's son, Col 4:10, his mother's name was Mary, Ac 12:12. The Apostle Peter calls him his son, 1Pe 5:13, if he is the same; and he is thought to have wrote his Gospel from him {a}, and by his order, and which was afterwards examined and approved by him {b} it is said to have been wrote originally in Latin, or in the Roman tongue: so say the Arabic and Persic versions at the beginning of it, and the Syriac version says the same at the end: but of this there is no evidence, any more, nor so much, as of Matthew's writing his Gospel in Hebrew. The old Latin copy of this, is a version from the Greek; it is most likely that it was originally written in Greek, as the rest of the New Testament.

{a} Papias apud Euseb. Hist. l. 3. c. 39. Tertull. adv. Marcion. l. 4. c. 5. {b} Hieron. Catalog. Script. Eccles. p. 91. sect. 18.

Footnotes

• [a]. *Here "[as]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("was passing by") which is understood as temporal
• [b]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
• [c]. Literally "come after"
• [d]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("left") has been translated as a finite verb
• [e]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("left") has been translated as a finite verb
• [f]. Some manuscripts have "he went into the synagogue and began to teach"