The Parable of the Dragnet

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This is the seventh and last of the kingdom parables gathered in Matthew 13.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."¹

A Net That Gathers Every Kind

The net in view here is not a small casting net thrown by a single fisherman from the shore. It is a dragnet, a long seine worked by a crew and typically drawn between two boats, dropped in a wide arc across the water and then pulled slowly toward the beach. Everything within its sweep comes up with it, and the net itself makes no distinction of any kind. Fishing of this sort on the Sea of Galilee brought in a mixture of species together in a single haul, and the sorting had to happen afterward, on land, because it could not happen in the water.

Scripture elsewhere uses the sea itself as a figure for the nations and the peoples of the earth. Isaiah writes that "the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt,"² and the book of Revelation makes the same identification explicit: "the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues."³ If that association stands behind the parable as well, the net cast into the sea pictures the gospel going out into the nations without regard to who will finally prove genuine and who will not. The net does not sort as it gathers. It gathers first, indiscriminately, and the sorting comes later.

The Sorting on the Shore

"Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away."⁴ Two details in this sentence carry weight. The sorting does not begin until the net is full, and it is done sitting down, without haste. The fishermen do not sort as the net comes up. They wait until the entire catch is in hand and then take the time the task requires.

Jewish practice distinguished sharply between fish that could be eaten and fish that could not. The law given through Moses stated the rule plainly: "These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you."⁵ A dragnet swept up both kinds together, since the net itself could not tell one from the other, and every haul had to be sorted by hand before any of it could be sold or eaten. The good, in the parable, are gathered into vessels for keeping. The bad are simply thrown away, and nothing in the parable suggests that the fish itself changes in the sorting. The sorting reveals a difference that was already there in the water, unseen, before the net ever closed around it.

When the Separation Falls

"So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just."⁶ Jesus states plainly when this sorting takes place. It is not scattered through the present age as each life ends, and it is not left to human judgment to carry out. It happens at the end of the world, and the ones who carry it out are the angels rather than any earthly court or congregation.

Beyond fixing the moment, Jesus gives no further explanation of what he calls the furnace of fire, or of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that he says will be found there. Those are his own words for what awaits the wicked once they are severed from the just, and this account leaves them exactly where he left them, without translating them into a further description of how long the fire burns or in what state the ones cast into it remain. What the parable states is the fact and the timing of the separation. What lies beyond that statement is not given here, and is not supplied by this account.

Examine Yourselves

The dragnet gathers every kind without distinction, which is another way of saying that no one within the visible reach of the gospel is exempted from the question the parable finally puts to him. Paul puts the same question to the Corinthians directly: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?"⁷ Being caught up in the net, in other words, being within reach of the gospel, present in the visible company that gathers around it, is not the same thing as being among the good that are finally gathered into the vessels.

Matthew 13:47-50, KJV. ↩
Isaiah 57:20, KJV. ↩
Revelation 17:15, KJV. ↩
Matthew 13:48, KJV. ↩
Leviticus 11:9-10, KJV. ↩
Matthew 13:49, KJV. ↩
2 Corinthians 13:5, KJV. ↩