Mark 8:1-9. The Feeding of the Four Thousand 1. _the multitude being very great_ The effect of these miraculous cures on the inhabitants of the half-pagan district of Decapolis was very great. So widely was the fame of them spread abroad, that great multitudes brought their sick unto the Lord (Matt... [ Continue Reading ]
_And his disciples answered him_ Though the Apostles are the writers, they do not conceal from us their own shortcomings, or the fact that they had so soon forgotten so great a miracle. _From whence can a man satisfy_ It has been suggested that "it is evermore thus in times of difficulty and distres... [ Continue Reading ]
_to sit down Where_is not distinctly specified. All we can certainly gather is that it was on the eastern side of the Lake, and in a _desert spot_(Matthew 15:33), possibly about the middle or southern end of the Lake.... [ Continue Reading ]
_seven baskets_ Not the small wicker _cophinoi_of the former miracle, but large baskets of rope, such as that in which St Paul was lowered from the wall of Damascus (Acts 9:25). We notice at once the difference between this and the Miracle of the Five Thousand: (_a_) The people had been with the Lo... [ Continue Reading ]
The Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod 10. _the parts of Dalmanutha_ or as St Matthew says, _into the coasts of Magdala_(Mark 15:39), or according to some MSS. _Magadan_. Nothing is known of Dalmanutha. It must clearly have been near to Magdala, which may have been the Greek name of one of the man... [ Continue Reading ]
_And the Pharisees_ Our Lord seems purposely to have avoided sailing to Bethsaida or Capernaum, which lay a little north of Magdala, and which had become the head-quarters of the Pharisees; but they had apparently watched for His arrival, and now "_came forth_" to meet Him accompanied for the first... [ Continue Reading ]
_he sighed deeply in his spirit_ Not merely, we may conclude, at their hardened disbelief, but also with the feeling that the decisive crisis of the severance from the ruling powers had come. "For the demand for a sign from heaven was a demand that He should, as the Messiah of their expectation, acc... [ Continue Reading ]
_he left them_ "Justa severitas," Bengel. "It was His final rejection on the very spot where He had laboured most, and He was leaving it, to return, indeed, for a passing visit, but never to appear again publicly, or to teach, or work miracles." _the other side_ i. e. the eastern side of the Lake.... [ Continue Reading ]
_had forgotten_ In the hurry of their unexpected re-embarkation they had altogether omitted to make provision for their own personal wants.... [ Continue Reading ]
_the leaven of the Pharisees_ Leaven in Scripture, with the single exception of the Parable (Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20-21), is always a symbol of evil (comp. 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9), especially insidious evil, as it is for the most part also in the Rabbinical writers. See Lightfoot on Ma... [ Continue Reading ]
_yet hardened_ as on the former occasion, the walking on the sea (Mark 6:52).... [ Continue Reading ]
_how many baskets_ Observe how our Lord reproduces in this allusion to the putting forth of His miraculous power not only the precise number but the precise kind of baskets taken up on each occasion. See above, on Mark 6:43. Wyclif brings out this in his translation: "Whanne I brak fyue looues among... [ Continue Reading ]
_ye do not understand_ They seem to have thought that He was warning them against buying leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.... [ Continue Reading ]
The Blind Man in Eastern Bethsaida 22. _Bethsaida_ i. e. _Bethsaida Julias_, which lay upon the northeastern coast of the Sea of Tiberias.... [ Continue Reading ]
_he took the blind man_ Even as He did with the other sufferer, whose case came before us in Mark 7:33. As then, so now, the Lord was pleased to work gradually and with external signs: (i) He leads the man out of the town; (ii) anoints his eyes with the moisture of His mouth; (iii) lays His hands up... [ Continue Reading ]
_as trees, walking_ He had not been _born_blind. He remembered the appearance of natural objects, and in the haze of his brightening vision he saw certain moving forms about him, "trees he should have accounted them from their height, but men from their motion.... [ Continue Reading ]
_saw every man clearly_ or rather, _began to see all things clearly_, "So that he syy clerely alle thingis," Wyclif. The word translated "clearly" literally = "far-shining," "far-beaming." The man meant that he could now see clearly _far and near_. This is one of the few instances of a strictly _pro... [ Continue Reading ]
_to his house_ Bethsaida, therefore, was not the place of his residence; he was to go immediately from the place to his own home not even to the village to which he had already come, and he was not to mention it to any one dwelling in that village, or whom he might meet by the way.... [ Continue Reading ]
27 9:1. Cæsarea Philippi. The Confession of St Peter 27. _And Jesus went out_ The Redeemer and His Apostles now set out in a northerly direction, and travelled some 25 or 30 miles along the eastern banks of the Jordan and beyond the waters of Merom, seeking the deepest solitude among the mountains,... [ Continue Reading ]
_they answered_ In this answer we have the explanation, which common rumour, in His own days, offered of His marvellous works. (1) Some, like the guilty Herod, said He was John the Baptist risen from the dead; (2) others that He was Elijah, who, like Enoch, had never died, but was taken up bodily to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou art the Christ_ To the momentous question, _But whom say ye that I am?_St Peter, as the ready spokesman of the rest of the Apostles, made the ever-memorable reply, _Thou art the Christ, the Messiah_(Matthew 16:16; Luke 9:20), _the Son of the living God_(Matthew 16:16), but in the Gospel writte... [ Continue Reading ]
_And he began to teach them_ The question and the answer it called forth were alike preparatory to strange and mournful tidings, which He now began to reveal distinctly to the Apostles respecting Himself, for clear and full before His eyes was the whole history of His coming sufferings, the agents t... [ Continue Reading ]
_openly_ i. e. not publicly, but "_plainly_" (" _pleinli_," Wyclif) and "_without disguise_" Comp. John 11:14, "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." Before this there had been intimations of the End, but then they had been dark and enigmatical. (_a_) The Baptist had twice pointed Him... [ Continue Reading ]
_when he had turned about and looked on his disciples_ Observe the graphic touches of St Mark. The Apostle who had restrained the Evangelist from preserving the record of that which redounded to his highest honour, suppresses the record neither of his own mistaken zeal, nor of the terrible rebuke it... [ Continue Reading ]
_he had called_ Even in these lonely regions considerable numbers would seem to have followed Him, apparently at some little distance. These He now _called to Him_, and addressed to them, as well as to His Apostles, some of His deepest teaching, making them sharers in this part of His instruction.... [ Continue Reading ]
_shall lose it_ This solemn saying our Lord is found to have uttered on no less than _four_several occasions: (_a_) here, which corresponds with Matthew 16:25; Luke 9:24; (_b_) Matthew 10:39; (_c_) Luke 17:33; (_d_) John 12:25.... [ Continue Reading ]
_in exchange_ i. e. to _purchase back_. By soul here is meant "life" in the higher sense. The "price" which the earthly-minded man gives for the world is his soul. But after having laid that down as the price, what has he for a "ransom-price," to purchase it again? The LXX. use the original word in... [ Continue Reading ]
_adulterous_ The generation is called "adulterous," because its heart was estranged from God. Comp. Jeremiah 31:32; Isaiah 54:5.... [ Continue Reading ]