John 21:11

Peter did not leave his fellow disciples to struggle with the nets while he stood by. He helped them pull the huge catch of fish that Jesus had provided to land.

There have been many allegorical explanations of the meaning of the 153 fish. Most of these are much too involved to explain here. [Note: See the commentaries, or for a brief overview, Carson, The Gospel . . ., pp. 672-73.] Many of these involve gamatria. Gamatria is the discipline of deriving a word or words from the Hebrew, or in this case the Greek, letters that also represent numbers in their respective languages. One of the more credible explanations of the 153 fish is as follows. Jesus formerly told His disciples that they would become fishers of men, an obvious metaphor (Mark 1:17). If the fish here represent the converts that Jesus would miraculously provide for His disciples to "catch," perhaps their large number represents many converts (cf. Matthew 13:47-50). The fact that the net did not break may symbolize the capability of the gospel to "catch" many people without failing. [Note: Bruce, pp. 401-2.]

Perhaps John simply recorded the number as a detail to lend authenticity to his testimony (cf. John 2:6). He was, after all, a fisherman himself. Most fishermen know exactly how many fish they have caught whenever they catch some, and this was a very unusual catch. Probably the disciples divided the catch and so had to count the fish.