Mark 1:16-20

16 As he walked beside Lake Kinneret, he saw Shim`on and Andrew, Shim`on's brother, casting a net into the lake; for they were fishermen.

17 Yeshua said to them, "Come, follow me, and I will make you into fishers for men!"

18 At once they left their nets and followed him.

19 Going on a little farther, he saw Ya`akov Ben-Zavdai and Yochanan, his brother, in their boat, repairing their nets.

20 Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zavdai in the boat with the hired men and went after Yeshua.

Mark 1:16-20 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.