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From: Shemayah
Date: 20 Jul 1999
Time: 20:05:12
Remote Name: 204.116.59.111
dag is the primitive root, meaning to "teem" "be many" >become many=increase, from which dag "fish" comes because of the way they teem and increase. I don't believe there is any reference to a later fish episode.
You'll have to excuse incorrect transliterations I am posting. I have not checked other sages (yet) but Rashi understands this meaning also, as does modern translators, including E.A. Speiser who was well versed in Semitic languages, not just Hebrew.
I do not think this is a messianic prooftext at all.
1) Bet Tsayda was not a desert town. It lay near the mouth of the Yarden at the north end of the Yam ha-Galil, a shallow place where fish accumulated heavily. Bet Tsayda can mean both "Fishville" or "Huntsville" ;-) tsayda refering to either hunter or fisher and Bet means "house" of course. 2)Yahshua is told to have fed 5000 men with 5 loaves and 2 fish. This is symbolic one-upmanhip with the nav'i 'Eliyah who fed 100 men with 20 loaves, etc. Eliyah as a messianic forerunner serves as a starting point for showing Yahshua's comparative greatness. There are leftovers from both Eliyah and Yahshua. Yahshua has a symbolic 12 baskets remaining after the feeding (for the 12 tribes of Yisra'el?) Do you see more?
Shalom, Shemayah