Again, the kingdom of heaven is like repeats the formula used at the first of verse 45. Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition renders “When God’s new world comes, it will be like a net…”; and Barclay “To take another illustration, what happens in the Kingdom of Heaven is like what happened when a net was cast into the sea….” Malay common language version translates “When God establishes his reign, the situation will be the same as that of a net….”

As in the previous parable, there are different ways the transition from the preceding paragraph, Again, can be rendered. In addition to the examples above, translators can also have “Here is another parable about God’s rule,” “When God rules, it can also be seen to be like this,” or “God’s rule is also like this.”

The net was a large draw net with floats at the top to keep it from sinking, and weights at the bottom. It was often dragged ashore in a large semicircle by several men.

The Greek passive a net which was thrown into is altered to an active in Good News Translation: (“Some fishermen throw their net out”). For many languages an active restructuring will be the only satisfactory solution.

In some languages net has to be further specified as “a net for catching fish.”

The sea here can be “the water” or “the lake.”

Net … gathered fish of every kind is made into a passive by New English Bible: “where fish of every kind were caught in it.” Some languages may require an active structure with the fishermen as subject: “The fishermen caught all kinds of fish in their net.”

Fish of every kind means “fish that were good to eat and fish that were not good to eat,” as the next verse makes clear; the fish are not to be interpreted symbolically.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .