The Greek terms that are used for what is translated as “net” in English are translated in languages like Navajo where fishing with nets is not known as “instruments to catch (or: bring out) the fish.” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
“[People living close to lakes] produced further problems for us over fishing terms when we reached the revision of the Gospels. Fishing is practically unknown in the mountain streams and rivers, so there is hardly any vocabulary for it up-country. In Mat. 4:18 we read that Jesus saw two brethren “casting a net into the sea.” The word we used for net (urusenga) is used all over Rundi for a fishing net, whatever it is like, but when I read this to some people who live by the lake they said it was the wrong word, as from the context this happened during the daytime, and urusenga-fishing is only done at night. It appears that the urusenga is something like a shrimping net, and is used on moonless nights, when the fishermen hold flares over the side of the boat and attract a certain variety of very small fish which swim about in shoals. The net they use for day-time fishing is something like a drag-net and is called urukwabu. On enquiry inland, I never discovered a single person who knew this word. It was obviously the right one, technically speaking, but we felt that the few thousand lake-dwellers could not be weighed against almost the entire population of the country, so we had to employ the up-country word, putting an explanatory note in the margin that by the lake this net is called urukwabu.”
Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing net-fishing in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 5:4:
Noongar: “When Jesus stopped speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Go to deep water. You and your friends, drop your nets and you will catch fish.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “After he finished teaching, he said saying to Simon: ‘Pole-out farther to the deep-place, and throw your nets to get fish.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Noongar: “The Holy Spirit was within Simeon and the Spirit told him that he would not die before he saw the day when the One would come, the One God is Sending.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Yakan: “When he had finished preaching, he said to Simon, ‘Paddle with your companions to the deep and throw out your nets so that you will catch fish.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “When Jesus finished teaching he said to Simon, he said, ‘Row this boat out in the deep and then cast out your net there, and you will catch some fish.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “When he was finished teaching, he said to Simon, ‘Move-over your (sing.) boat to where the deep water is so that you (pl.) will then lower your nets.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “When his teaching was finished, he said to Simon, ‘You (pl.) sail out now and drop your (pl.) nets again.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The name that is transliterated as “Simon (Peter)” in English is translated in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) with a sign that combines a reference to “Peter” (see here for the Libras translation of “Peter”) and “son” (of Jonah / John). (Source: Missão Kophós )
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between. One way Japanese show different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morphemes rare (られ) or are (され) are affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
hōs de epausato lalōn ‘when he stopped speaking.’ lalōn here means ‘addressing people.’
pauomai ‘to stop (oneself) doing,’ ‘to finish’ usually with following participle.
epanagage eis to bathos lit. ‘put out into the depth,’ i.e. to there where the water is deep. The use of the article does not imply that to bathos refers to one particular spot. The command is addressed to Simon as in v. 3, which may imply that he was steering.
chalasate ta diktua humōn eis agran ‘let down your nets for a catch.’ Strictly speaking chalasate in the plural is still addressed to Simon. But the use of the plural implies that to let down the nets required more than one person (Plummer).
chalaō ‘to let down’ the nets into the water, not ‘to throw out,’ since the reference here is to a dragnet (cf. IDB II, 274).
agra ‘catching,’ ‘catch.’ For the latter meaning cf. on v. 9. eis agran means ‘in order to catch.’
Translation:
When he had ceased speaking, or, ‘being-finished his speaking’ (Ekari). Instead of ‘speaking/speech’ some versions (Malay, Sundanese) have ‘teaching,’ because of v. 3.
Put out into the deep. The movement started in v. 3a, and interrupted in v. 3b, is now continued farther out into the lake, where the water is deeper. Some languages can use the same verb as in v. 3a, e.g. ‘pole (here) on to the deep’ (Tae’), ‘cause the boat to go-to-the-middle further to the deep place’ (Balinese), but in others the use of a different, sometimes rather specific, verb is required.
Put out (sing.) … let down (plur.) your (plur.) nets. Where the shift from singular to plural cannot be brought out by simply using different pronominal and/or verbal forms some versions are content to leave it unexpressed, but in such cases one may consider a rendering like, ‘put out (sing.) …, you and your mates must let down the nets.’
For a catch, or, ‘to get fish’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘to net (fish)’ (cf. Santali), ‘to fish’ (Tae’).
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
Put out into deep water: The phrase Put out into deep water here means “Move (either by sailing or rowing) your boat into deep water.” That is, Jesus told Simon to move the boat farther away from the shore.
Some other ways to translate this are:
Sail/Row(sing) out to where the water is deeper -or-
Go(sing) farther away from the shore into the deeper wate -or-
Simon, cause/make(sing) the boat to go to the deep water
5:4c
let down your nets: The verb let down describes the action of putting nets into the water. In some cultures, fishermen “throw” or “cast” their nets into the water. Use the most natural verb in your language for this action.
The command let down is a plural form. It shows that there were other men in the boat helping Simon Peter.
for a catch: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as for a catch here means “in order to catch some fish.”
Different languages have different expressions for “catching” fish. For example:
take/get fish -or-
kill fish -or-
hunt fish -or-
trap fish
Use the most natural expression in your language for fishing.
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