Matius 4:20-22

4:20 They ¹  left their nets immediately and followed him. ²  4:21 Going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a boat ³  with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. Then ⁴  he called them. 4:22 They ⁵  immediately left the boat and their father and followed him.

Matius 9:9

The Call of Matthew; Eating with Sinners

9:9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth. ⁶  “Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him.

[4:20]  ¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[4:20]  ² sn The expression followed him pictures discipleship, which means that to learn from Jesus is to follow him as the guiding priority of one’s life.

[4:21]  ³ tn Or “their boat.” The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (en tw ploiw) can either refer to a generic boat, some boat (as it seems to do here); or it can refer to “their” boat, implying possession. Mark assumes a certain preunderstanding on the part of his readers about the first four disciples and hence the translation “their boat” is justified (cf. also v. 20 in which the “hired men” indicates that Zebedee’s family owned the boats), while Matthew does not.

[4:21]  ⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[4:22]  ⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[9:9]  ⁶ tn While “tax office” is sometimes given as a translation for τελώνιον (telwnion, so L&N 57.183), this could give the modern reader a false impression of an indoor office with all its associated furnishings.

[9:9]  sn The tax booth was a booth located on the edge of a city or town to collect taxes for trade. There was a tax booth in Capernaum, which was on the trade route from Damascus to Galilee and the Mediterranean. The “taxes” were collected on produce and goods brought into the area for sale, and were a sort of “sales tax” paid by the seller but obviously passed on to the purchaser in the form of increased prices (L&N 57.183). It was here that Jesus met Matthew (also named Levi [see Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27]) who was ultimately employed by the Romans, though perhaps more directly responsible to Herod Antipas. It was his job to collect taxes for Rome and he was thus despised by Jews who undoubtedly regarded him as a traitor.