The historical meaning of Jesus’ parable of the dragnet

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Jesus tells a rather disturbing story about the judgment of his people at the end of the age of second temple Judaism. This is my very functional translation:

Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a dragnet (sagēnēi) thrown into the sea, and it gathered from every kind (of fish). When it was full, drawing it on to the shore and sitting, they collected the good into containers, but the bad they threw away. So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come out and will separate out the wicked from the midst of the righteous and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt. 13:47-50)

The historical scope of the parables of failure, judgment, and renewal in Matthew 13 is given in the quotation of Isaiah 6:9-10: a prophet is sent to Israel with a message that will be rejected, therefore he speaks in parables and enigmas as a sign of their obduracy and incomprehension.

This is not an end-of-the-world scenario: the “furnace of fire” is the Gehenna of God’s judgment against his people (cf. Matt. 5:22; 18:8-9); the Jews weep when Jerusalem is destroyed and the people are taken into exile (Bar. 4:11, 23); unrighteous Jews gnash their teeth when they are excluded from YHWH’s presence and purposes (Ps. 36:12; 111:10).

But having read Habakkuk again to get the context for Paul’s quotation of the righteous living by faith saying in Romans 1:17, I wonder if we don’t find here another reason to stress the historical orientation 0f Jesus’ story.

Habakkuk first complains that YHWH does nothing to punish wickedness and injustice in Israel, and he is told that God will send the ferocious Chaldeans as agents of judgment (Hab. 1:1-11).

Habakkuk is then concerned that this is an excessive and indiscriminate method of judgment because the righteous will suffer along with the unrighteous. He is reassured, however, that the righteous person will live by his faith—or something like that (2:4).

Of interest to us here, in the first place, is Habakkuk’s “parable” of the dragnet. God has made the nations like the fish of the sea. The Chaldeans are like a fisherman who relentlessly gathers the nations into his dragnets (sagēnais) and never stops killing the nations (1:14-17 LXX). The fisherman even sacrifices to his nets (the armies of the Chaldeans?) because they are the source of his great wealth and luxurious lifestyle.

So the dragnet is an image for the destruction, looting, and slaughter done by a powerful invading army. The subsequent line of thought is a little difficult to follow, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, but the main point seems clear enough: these things will certainly happen, but the righteous person in Israel will be preserved from destruction by his faith or faithfulness.

Jesus perhaps thinks of the wicked in Israel being removed from the midst of (ek mesou) the righteous when Rome draws its dragnet of violence on to the shore. Habakkuk’s view seems to be rather that the righteous will be saved from the midst of the unrighteous, who will be destroyed. One emphasises judgment, the other deliverance.

But in each case, the urgent existential and theological question is the same: what will happen to the righteous when a far more powerful army descends upon the land to carry out the judgment of God against his people?