lit., "something thrown around" (amphi, "around," ballo, "to throw"), denotes "a casting net," a somewhat small "net," cast over the shoulder, spreading out in a circle and made to sink by weights, Mat 4:18 (in some mss. in Mar 1:16, the best have the verb amphiballo alone).
<2,,1350, diktuon>
a general term for a "net" (from an old verb diko, "to cast:" akin to diskos, "a quoit"), occurs in Mat 1:4-21, Mar 1:1-19, Luk 5:2, Luk 1:5-6, Joh 21:6, Joh 21:8, Joh 21:11 (twice). In the Sept. it was used for a "net" for catching birds, Pro 1:17, in other ways, e.g., figuratively of a snare, Job 18:8, Pro 29:5.
<3,,4522, sagene>
denotes "a dragnet a seine;" two modes were employed with this, either by its being let down into the water and drawn together in a narrowing circle, and then into the boat, or as a semicircle drawn to the shore, Mat 13:47, where Nos. 1 and 2 would not have suited so well. The Greek historian Herodotus used the corresponding verb sageneuo of a device by which the Persians are said to have cleared a conquered island of its inhabitants.
