Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
Used for hunting and fishing
(Isa. 19:8; Matt. 13:47). Style, manufacture, and method borrowed from Egyptians.
Concise Bible Dictionary:
Fishermen Near Sidon – Dec. 10-20, 1937
Various words are translated “net,” some signifying large nets, and others the drag net. Symbolically nets represent devices secretly laid or they would be shunned, even as a bird avoids a net spread in its sight (Prov. 1:17). The kingdom of heaven is compared to a net cast into the sea, which gathers good and bad; “the wicked” will be sorted from “the just” at the end of the age (Matt. 13:47-49). Satan and the wicked also prepare their nets and snares (Psa. 141:10; 1 Tim. 3:7).
Trammel nets for snaring migratory quail near Gaza.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Matthew 13:47. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.
The precise form of the fishing nets used by the Hebrews is not known; or do we know the exact difference between the) meanings to be attached to the several words which are translated “net.” A kind of net very commonly used resembled the modern seine. It is a net of this sort that is referred to here. Some suppose that in John 21:6, there is also an allusion to this kind of net, but others think that a net for deep-sea fishing is there meant; a net so arranged as to enclose the fish in deep water. Such a net seems to be intended in Luke 5:4, where the command is given, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.”
In the Old Testament, fishing nets are referred to in Habakkuk 1:15-16.
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