Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 4:19

"And he saith unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men." — Matthew 4:19 (ASV)

Follow me — The command came, as we have seen, to those who were not unprepared. Short as it was, it was in some sense the first parable in our Lord’s teaching, the germ of an actual parable (Matthew 13:47). It suggested a whole circle of thoughts. The sea is the troubled and evil world (Isaiah 57:20), the souls of men are the fish that have to be caught and taken from it, and the net is the Church of Christ. The figure had been used before (Jeremiah 16:16), but then it had presented its darker aspect, and the “fishers of men” were their captors and enslavers. The earliest surviving hymn of the Church, by Clement of Alexandria, dwells on the image with a rich and suggestive playfulness. Christ is addressed in this way:

Fisher of men, the blest,
Out of the world’s unrest,
Out of sin’s troubled sea
Taking us, Lord, to Thee;
Out of the waves of strife,
With bait of blissful life,
Drawing Thy nets to shore
With choicest fish, good store.