But the other disciples came in the little boat (for they were not far from the land, but about two hundred cubits away), dragging the net full of fish.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 8. The evangelist praises Peter, and excuses the other apostles: all come to Christ; the former leaving his boat, his companions, his nets and prey, arrives more expeditiously; the latter with the impediments of the boat and nets, and so forth and so forth arrive also, but not so readily; a just figure this of religious, who leave all to go directly to God, and of those who remain in the world, and have to navigate a treacherous element with imminent danger of shipwreck. Maldonatus.—The poet Sedulius writes thus on the nets:
Pendula fluctivagam traxerunt retia prædam,
Per typicam noscenda viam; nam retia dignis
Lucida sunt præcepta Dei, quibus omnis in illa
Dextra parte manens concluditur, ac simul ulnis
Fertur apostolicis Domini ad vestigia Christi.
200 cubits is about 100 yards or about 91 meters