Mark 1:19-20

1:19 Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother in their ¹  boat mending nets. 1:20 Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

[1:19]  ¹ tn Or “a boat.” The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (en tw ploiw) can either refer to a generic boat, some boat (as it seems to do in Matt 4:21); or it can refer to “their” boat, implying possession. Mark assumes a certain preunderstanding on the part of his readers about the first four disciples and hence the translation “their boat” is justified (cf. also v. 20 in which the “hired men” indicates that Zebedee’s family owned the boats).