Mark: “When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.”
Who was this man?
In the Old Testament God is referred to under several names: El, El Echad, El Hanneeman, El Emet, El Tsaddik, El Elyon, El Olam etc. The list is much longer and includes the name Elohim Azar(El Azar), meaning “God our helper”. And El Azar became “Lazarus”. This is just an excerpt.
But one of the most important names God operates under is El Shaddai. El Shaddai is used no less than 48 times in the Tanakh. Not only that. This divine name is used almost exclusively about God referred to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. According to Exodus 6:2, 3, Shaddai (שַׁדַּי) is the name of the god known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Exodus 6:3 :”I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty(El Shaddai), but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.”
We see this again in James 5:4 :”Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty(El Shaddai).
Zebedee is El Shaddai.
James is Jacob/Israel.
Israel leaves his Lord El Shaddai (Zebedee) and embark on a journey with a new Lord – YHWH (Jesus).
Why then are they fishermen? The answer is once again Midrash.
Jeremiah 16:14: “However, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ 15 but it will be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.
16 “But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them.”
In Luke there is a rather strange verse.
Luke 9:51 :”When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem; 52and He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him.53But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. 54When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55But He turned and rebuked them, [and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; 56for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”]
If we understand that James and John were sons of the same God who sent brimstone and fire from heaven to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, then this verse makes sense.
James and John were “Sons of Thunder” – they were sons of El Shaddai.
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