Matthew 15:37

seven baskets Spurides, see note ch. Matthew 14:20, and Acts 9:25, where St Paul is said to have been let down from the wall of Damascus in a spuris, probably a large basket made of rope-net, possibly a fisherman's basket. Why the disciples brought different kinds of baskets on the two occasions we cannot determine.

the broken meat that was left See ch. Matthew 14:20. One side of the lesson is the lavishness of Providence. God gives even more than we require or ask for. But the leading thought is a protest against waste.

39 16:4. Jesus at Magdala, or Magadan, is tempted to give a Sign. Mark 8:10-12; Luke 12:54-57

took ship Literally, went on board the ship.

the coasts of Magdala The MSS. vary between Magdala and Magadan. The latter reading, however, has by far the highest authority in its favour. It is probable that the familiar Magdala supplanted in the text the more obscure Magadan. Magdala or Migdol (a watch tower) is identified with the modern Mejdel, a collection of ruins and squalid huts at the S.E. corner of the plain of Gennesaret, opposite to K'hersa or Gergesa. This is the point where the lake is broadest. Prof. Rawlinson thinks that this Magdala may be the Magdolus of Herodotus, ii. 159; unless indeed by a confusion curiously similar to that in the text, Herodotus has mistaken Migdol for Megiddo. Magdala was probably the home of Mary Magdalene.