Footnote

“The copious supply of fish in the waters of Palestine encouraged the art or avocation of fishery, to which frequent allusions are made in the Bible: in the Old Testament these allusions are of a metaphorical character, descriptive either of the conversion (Jeremiah 16:16; Ezekiel 47:10) or of the destruction (Ezekiel 29:3 sq.; Ecclesiastes 9:12; Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:14) of the enemies of God. In the New Testament the allusions are of a historical character for the most part . . . , though the metaphorical application is still maintained in Matthew 13:47 sq.”

The Holy Bible Commentary by F. C. Cook, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, in 1886, says, in Volume 5, page 414, on Jeremiah 16:16: “. . . spiritually, the fathers expound it of the Apostles as ‘fishers of men.’ So Origen, ‘The Apostles are the Fishers, who from the divine scriptures weave the nets whereby they draw men out of the briny sea of a worldly life, that God may give them a better life, even upon the mountains, with the prophets and their Lord, who was transfigured upon a mountain, and upon a mountain taught the people His beatitudes: and there the hunters are the angels, who come to receive their souls as they depart from their bodies’ (Origen in ‘Gr. Ghislerii,’ II,430).”

On the unfavorable side M’Clintock and Strong’s Biblical Cyclopædia, Volume 3, says, under “Fisher,” page 580, column 1:

“A term used, besides its literal import . . . in the phrase ‘fishers of men’ . . . as applied by our Saviour to the apostles . . . in calling them to their office; and in a like typical manner, but in an unfavorable sense, the word occurs Jeremiah 16:16. The application of the figure is obvious.”

Some commentators take verses 14, 15 of Jeremiah 16 to be an interruption of the prophecy, those verses being repeated, though with slight changes, in Jer chapter 23, verses 7, 8. Accordingly, An American Translation (Smith-Goodspeed) puts Jer 16 verses 14, 15 in brackets, whereas the Bible translation by Dr. James Moffatt omits verses 14, 15 altogether. When read thus immediately after verse 13, verse 16 would take on an unfavorable meaning toward God’s ancient covenant people of Israel.