" Perhaps he also thought of another time when the Lord asked
for some food, "and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"--to show them, while
they yet believed not for joy and wondered, that it was indeed Himself who
was standing among them, risen from the dead.
You will find that there are a good many places in the Bible where fish
are spoken of. I hope you will have in your list one which was given me by
Sharley only; although I had expected that everybody would have found it.
It is mentioned in the gospel by Matthew, alone. We are not told what sort
of fish it was in whose mouth Peter found the "stater," a piece of money
worth about three shillings, which was exactly enough to give, as the Lord
told him, to those who had come to ask for money to meet some expenses
belonging to the temple. Every Jew paid a fixed sum, and this piece of
money in the fish's mouth was just twice that sum. How beautiful that the
One who was God, and had power over the fish of the sea, to send them into
Peter's net, or to make even a fish bring to Him the coin which was wanted,
should put Himself beside Peter, and say, "Lest we should offend them, go
thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh
up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money:
that take, and give unto them for Me and thee"! Ah, but we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart" and He loved to put His
disciples with Himself, as children of God His Father!
A writer who lived at the time when our "King James's" Bible was
translated, speaking of the sea as "the great pond of the world," says, "We
know not whether to wonder at the element itself, or the guests which it
contains.
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