Matthew 4:22 is the twenty-second verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. After recruiting Simon Peter and Andrew

Saint Andrew

Saint Andrew , called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" , like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him...

 as disciples Jesus encountered the brothers James

Saint James the Great

James, son of Zebedee was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of John the Apostle...

 and John

John the Apostle

John the Apostle, John the Apostle, John the Apostle, (Aramaic Yoħanna, (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles...

 and their father Zebedee

Zebedee

Zebedee is a name which may refer to:-People:* Zebedee , father of James and John* Zebedee Armstrong , an American outsider artist...

. In this verse they also join him.

The original Koine Greek

Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

, according to Westcott and Hort

The New Testament in the Original Greek

The New Testament in the Original Greek is the name of a Greek language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort...

, reads:

οι δε ευθεως αφεντες το πλοιον και

τον πατερα αυτων ηκολουθησαν αυτω

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

And they immediately left the ship

and their father, and followed him.

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

They immediately left the boat and

their father, and followed him.

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 4:22

This verse is quite similar to Matthew 4:20

Matthew 4:20

Matthew 4:20 is the twentieth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee and has encountered the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew...

 where Simon Peter and Andrew choose to follow Jesus. Like that verse the immediacy and renunciative nature of their becoming disciples is emphasized. The sacrifice is enhanced in this verse, however, as James and John are not only giving up worldly goods but also abandoning their father. This renunciation of family ties is also emphasized in Matthew 8:21-22. Carter feels this is evidence that Jesus is rejecting the traditional patriarchal structure of society where the father had command over his children. Instead all will be equally brothers under God the father. Carter notes that the breaking of family ties were not absolute, however. Throughout the Gospel John and James are described as the "sons of Zebedee" and in Matthew 8:14, when the disciples visit Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

's family.

This verse is quite similar to Mark 1:20, except that in that verse the adverb immediately is use to modify Jesus' calling of the pair, not their coming. If the author of Matthew is basing his work on Mark, as is theorized by the two-source hypothesis

Two-source hypothesis

The Two-Source Hypothesis is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings...

, then he made a conscious decision to emphasize the rapidity of the disciples response. Immediate obedience to the word of God is an important virtue in the Gospel of Matthew, as seen earlier in Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

's prompt obedience to the divine messages in Matthew 2

Matthew 2

Matthew 2 is the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It describes the events after the birth of Jesus. The first section deals with the visit of the magi and the attempt by King Herod to kill the infant messiah. The second portion deals with Jesus' Flight into Egypt, and...

.