Fish
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προσφάγιον names food eaten alongside bread, most often fish, a relish or accompaniment rather than the main staple itself. " The question is deceptively ordinary; a stranger asking exhausted fishermen whether their night's work produced anything to eat.
Reader summary
Full entry for προσφάγιον (G4371) · Open the biblical lexicon
προσφάγιον names food eaten alongside bread, most often fish, a relish or accompaniment rather than the main staple itself. " The question is deceptively ordinary; a stranger asking exhausted fishermen whether their night's work produced anything to eat.
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include fish (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 21:5. Its strongest book concentrations include John (1).
προσφάγιον names food eaten alongside bread, most often fish, a relish or accompaniment rather than the main staple itself. Its only New Testament occurrence belongs to Jesus' question from the shore in John 21:5: "Children, do you have any fish?" The disciples answer plainly, "No." The question is deceptively ordinary; a stranger asking exhausted fishermen whether their night's work produced anything to eat.
Its ordinariness is precisely what makes the disciples' failure to recognize Jesus by voice alone understandable, and it sets up the miraculous catch that follows within two verses, when Jesus' instruction to cast the net on the other side of the boat fills it beyond their ability to haul in (John 21:6). Teachers should let the everyday, practical register of the question stand; Jesus does not announce himself with theological language but with a plain, provision-oriented question about food, characteristic of his care for ordinary human need throughout the Gospels.
John 21:5 is easy to pass over quickly on the way to the miraculous catch that follows, but the question itself is worth pausing over. The risen Lord of glory, who has already appeared to the disciples twice since his resurrection, opens this encounter not with a theological pronouncement but with a plain question about breakfast.
So He called out to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” “No,” they answered.
John 21:5 records Jesus calling from the shore, 'Children, do you have any fish?' to which the disciples answer, 'No.'
He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish.
The question immediately precedes Jesus' instruction to cast the net on the right side of the boat, resulting in a catch so large the disciples cannot haul it in (John 21:6), turning a simple provision question into the occasion for another miraculous sign.
When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Luke 5:4-7 records an earlier, similar miraculous catch at Jesus' instruction near the start of his ministry, framing John 21's post-resurrection catch as an echo of that first call to discipleship.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. A relish or delicacy eaten with bread, specifically cooked fish as accompaniment rather than main dish.
A relish or delicacy eaten with bread, specifically cooked fish as accompaniment rather than main dish.
(φαγεῖν), Hellenistic for ὄψον ὀψάριον) a relish or dainty (esp, cooked fish), to be eaten with bread: Jhn.21:5 (have ye taken any fish, Field, Notes, 109; Abbott, Essays, 105; cf. M, Pr., 170n; MM, Exp., xxi).
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
anything eaten with bread
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
προσφάγιον is built from these roots:
John 21:5 is easy to pass over quickly on the way to the miraculous catch that follows, but the question itself is worth pausing over. The risen Lord of glory, who has already appeared to the disciples twice since his resurrection, opens this encounter not with a theological pronouncement but with a plain question about breakfast. The pattern matches the whole shape of the chapter, which moves from an ordinary question about fish to a miraculous catch to a shared meal to Peter's threefold restoration.
Preachers can use this word to show that Jesus' care in this Gospel reaches into the most ordinary, practical corners of his disciples' lives, not only into their theological understanding. This word opens a teaching doorway on Jesus' ordinary, practical care: the risen Lord's first words in this scene concern breakfast, not doctrine, setting up a miraculous catch and a shared meal that together picture provision reaching into the most ordinary corners of discipleship.
It gives teachers a warm, grounded picture of resurrection care extending to daily need. It corrects readings that expect every resurrection appearance to open with formal theological content; John records Jesus opening this encounter with a plain, practical question about food. Frame προσφάγιον as part of Jesus' ordinary, practical opening question, setting up both provision and restoration in the scene that follows, not as an isolated detail.
John.21.5
Frame προσφάγιον as part of Jesus' ordinary, practical opening question, setting up both provision and restoration in the scene that follows, not as an isolated detail. Linguistically, προσφάγιον should be allowed to name fish, food eaten with bread without carrying claims the cited passages do not make.
Jesus consistently ties his provision to ordinary human need throughout the Gospels, feeding crowds and multiplying loaves and fish (John 6:1-13), and his simple question about food in John 21:5 continues that same pattern of practical care, now extended to his own exhausted disciples after the resurrection.
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