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Mar_1:16-20. See on Mat_4:18-22 (Luk_5:1 ff.). The narrative of Mark has the brevity and vividness of an original. Observe, however, how, according to all the evangelists, Jesus begins His work not with working miracles, but with teaching and collecting disciples.[54] This does not exclude the assumption that miracles essentially belonged to His daily work, and were even from the very beginning associated with His teaching, Mar_1:21 ff.
παράγων (see the critical remarks), as He passed along by the sea. This as well as ἀμφιβάλλ . ἐν τ . θαγ . (casting around) is part of the peculiar vividness of representation that Mark loves.
Mar_1:19. καὶ αὐτούς ] et ipsos in nave, likewise in the ship. It does not belong to καταρτίζοντας (the usual view, in which there is assumed an imperfect comparison, which contemplates only the fishers’ occupation generally, comp. on Mat_15:3), but merely to ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ , so that καταρτ . κ . τ . λ . then subjoins a further circumstance. The former explanation in the sense assigned to it would only be possible, if ἀμφιβάλλ ., in Mar_1:16, and καταρτ . were included under one more general idea.
Mar_1:20. μετὰ τ . μισθωτ .] peculiar to Mark. Any special purpose for this accuracy of detail is not apparent. It is an arbitrary supposition that it is intended to explain how the sons might leave their father without undutifulness (Paulus, Kuinoel, de Wette, Bleek, and others), in reference to which de Wette charges Mark with taking away from their resolution its nobleness.[55] It may, moreover, be inferred, that Zebedee carried on his business not altogether on a small scale, and perhaps was not without means. Comp. Mar_16:1; Luk_8:3; Joh_19:27; Only no comparison with the “poverty of Peter” (Hilgenfeld) is to be imported.
[54] Comp. Weizsäcker, p. 364. But the teaching begins with the announcement of the kingdom, which has as its presupposition the Messianic self-consciousness (Weizsäcker, p. 425). Without reason Schenkel maintains, p. 370, that Jesus could not at all have regarded Himself at the beginning of His work as the Messiah. He might do so, without sharing the political Messianic hopes. See Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 250 f.; Keim, Geschichtl. Chr. p. 44 f. But the view which makes the beginning of the teaching and miracle-working even precede the baptism (Schleiermacher) has absolutely no foundation in the N. T., not even in the history of the marriage feast at Cana. Nor yet can it be maintained, with Keim (p. 84), that the conviction of being the Messiah gained strength in Jesus gradually from His first emergence up to the decisiveness, which first makes itself manifest at Matthew 11, where He announces the present kingdom, no longer merely that which is approaching. For the approaching kingdom is throughout—only according to a relative conception of time—from the beginning onward to Luk_21:31 to be taken in an eschatological reference; and it presupposes, therefore, a Messianic self-certainty in the Son of man, who with this announcement takes up the preaching of the Baptist.
[55] With greater truth, because more naturally, it might be said that that trait places in so much stronger a light the resignation of those who were called, seeing that they forsook a business so successfully prosecuted. Comp. Ewald, p. 192. We may more surely affirm that it is just a mere feature of the detailed description peculiar to Mark. Comp. Weiss, l.c. p. 652.