Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

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Nets of various types of cord provided tools of trade for hunters, trappers, fowlers, and fishers. Hunters hung nets between trees or along game paths (Ps. 140:5[MT 6]) to entrap antelope or similar game (Job 18:8; Isa. 51:20) or, in conjunction with pits, used nets to trap lions (Ezek. 19:1-9). Metaphorically, nets represented God’s judgment (Lam. 1:13; Ezek. 12:13) or symbolized the schemes of the wicked to trap the righteous (Ps. 10:9). The imagery imparts a sense of hidden danger (Hos. 9:8) or the inability of the prey to escape the meshes of the net (Ezek. 32:3; Mic. 7:2).

The fowler suspended a net, secretly (Prov. 1:17), and lay in wait. At the right moment the net was released over feeding birds (Jer. 5:26; Amos 3:5). Flocks of birds, like quail, who had taken refuge in the undergrowth were trapped by having a net thrown over them (Hos. 7:12). So too, bad times fall like nets upon people (Eccl. 9:12). Death is the entangling cords of a net (Ps. 18:4-5[5-6] = 2 Sam. 22:5-6), but God delivers the righteous, like birds out of the broken nets of the fowler (Ps. 124:7).

Fishers also used nets (Matt. 4:20-21), either smaller cast nets (Isa. 19:8; Matt. 4:18) or dragnets (seine) requiring a group of people, in boats or on the shore (Hab. 1:15; Ezek. 47:10). Matt. 13:47-48 suggests fishers, as in Galilee, sorting edible fish (Cichlidae, musht or St. Peter’s fish; Cyprinidae, carp, both barbel and sardine) from inedible by Jewish law (Siluridae, catfish).

Bibliography. M. Nun, “Cast Your Net upon the Waters,” BARev 19/6 (1993): 46-56, 70; S. Wachsmann, “The Galilee Boat,” BARev 14/5 (1988): 18-23.

William R. Domeris

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

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Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)