For every event involving Jesus in the New Testament there is a corresponding Old Testament backstory.
Matthew 4:19 is that famous verse in which Jesus calls his first disciples to become “fishers of men.”
As with most biblical events this backstory naturally starts in the book of Genesis, which everyone should already know means “the beginning.” “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
The first thing to happen after God created this natural earth was that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” So, we have a natural physical earth moved upon by a Spiritual God.
For proper Biblical interpretation it is necessary that we understand that this natural, then spiritual, relationship is how a Spiritual Creator God chose to communicate with his ultimate creation—mankind.
In a previous article we examined Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus regarding how the Bible/God uses the natural to explain Himself. I often refer to this natural/spiritual demonstration method of communication as a “Nicodemus Thing.”
The first two verses in Genesis begin to establish a Biblical relationship between natural water and spiritual life which runs from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. You might even sum up the concept as a “pure river of water of life” (See Revelation 22:1).
Following this river as it winds its way from Genesis through the Old Testament, we will eventually come to The Book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a Jewish priest, who was carried away captive in the first Babylonian attack on Jerusalem. While sitting by the River Chebar in Babylon with other exiles on his 30th birthday, about five years after he was taken away from Jerusalem, Ezekiel experienced his first vision from God.
In Ezekiel’s first of many visions he sees a storm cloud arising, which represents Gods judgement upon Jerusalem/Judah’s disobedience towards God’s Law. Within this cloud of judgement Ezekiel sees the Holiness or Spirit of God leave Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem and fly to Babylon.
His vision of God’s Holiness is represented by the four living creatures, upon wheels, carrying the very throne of God. This is the same vision of the Lord’s holiness as seen by Isaiah over 100 years before Ezekiel lived.
It harkens back to Mose’s mountain encounters with the Lord. These four living creatures, Seraphims, as Isaiah called them, are part of another article for a later time. So, we’ll move along towards the end of Ezekiel’s book to get to how all this relates to fishers of men.
Near the end of Ezekiel’s book, after years of preaching repentance to those in exile, we find Ezekiel’s final vision of a perfect Holy Temple.
I do have to mention that Ezekiel’s final Perfect Holy Temple vision is based upon the two visions which preceded it in Ezekiel 37-39.
First he has the “valley of dry bone” vision, which is often preached. As told in the vision those bones represent the whole house of Israel as being dead, due to disobedience.
The bones come to life when a spirit-filled wind blows over them, just like in Genesis upon the water and when God first breathes the breath of life into Adam.
In the second vision Ezekiel sees the kings of the natural world represented by Gog in the land of Magog, also a reference Ezekiel lifts from Genesis, specifically chapter 10.
This vision shows the Lord doing battle and defeating the forces of the natural world, who always opposes God’s plan to free his people. This defeat of the world’s kingdoms by the Lord ushers in Ezekiel’s perfect temple vision.
Ezekiel’s perfect temple vision is completed with a river which springs up from the very threshold of the temple foundation itself. This life-giving river flows to the four corners of the earth, another reference Ezekiel stylistically borrows from Genesis. Wherever this river flows, it brings life-giving water to dead places. Even to desert places such as the Dead Sea in Israel. Please take note of this reference:
Ezekiel 47:9-10 KJV: [9] “And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. [10] And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.”
Herein is the backstory to Matthew 4:19 in which the Master fisher of men called his apostles to fish for men. En-gedi and En-eglaim were cities located on opposite ends of the Dead Sea in Ezekiel’s lifetime. Just as bones in the valley live by the moving of the Spirit of God, just as forces of evil will be destroyed by the Spirit of God, these fishers of men will draw men to the life-giving waters of God, by the Spirit of God. Jesus is the river of life, and from his sword-pierced side issued forth both blood and water. Jesus is the source or means to this life-giving water.
Ezekiel used natural examples in Hebrew poetic-speak and various other literary devices, such a metaphor to paint a picture of God’s love and how he would return man to God’s garden paradise. Jesus being the Messiah and rightful heir to all of God’s promised blessings, dictated by the Law and the Prophets, beautifully fulfilled all the prophecies of God.
Jesus dotted every I and crossed every T—especially the crosses!