Mark 6:30-44

7. THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND 6:30-44.

TEXT 6:30-44

And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they told him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught. And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while, For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart. And the people saw them going, and many knew them, and they ran there together on foot from all the cities, and outwent them. And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now far spent: send them away, that they may go into the country and villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat, But he answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? And he saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see, And when they knew they say, Five, and two fishes. And he commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the green grass, And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake the loaves; and he gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes. And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 6:30-44

287.

Where had the apostles been? What had they been doing? Into how many villages and towns do you imagine they went?

288.

What reaction would their success have on Herod?

289.

There was more than one reason for suggesting they go apart to a lonely placecan you discover them?

290.

Please attempt to locate the area into which Jesus and His apostles were going.

291.

How did the crowds know where they were going?

292.

Read John 6:4and discover why there was such a large crowd.

293.

Wasn-'t Jesus tired?How is it He was not filled with irritation instead of compassion when He saw the crowd?

294.

What two things did Jesus do for the crowds? Does this set some kind of example for medical and preaching work? Discuss.

295.

Why ask how many loaves they had?

296.

Why were they to sit in companies?

297.

At what time of the year was it when this miracle was performed?

298.

What particular type of miracle was here performed?

299.

How much did the people eat?

COMMENT

TIME.Spring of A.D. 29.
PLACES.Capernaum, Bethsaida.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTSMatthew 14:13-21; Luke 9:12-17; John 6.

OUTLINE1. The occasion for the miracle, Mark 6:30-37. Mark 6:2. The miracle, Mark 6:38-44.

ANALYSIS

I.

THE OCCASION FOR THE MIRACLE, Mark 6:30-37.

1.

The return and report of the apostles, Mark 6:30.

2.

The need for retirement, Mark 6:31.

3.

The unsuccessful attempt to seek solitude, Mark 6:32-33.

4.

The compassion and teaching of Jesus, Mark 6:34.

5.

The concern of the disciples and the answer of Jesus, Mark 6:35-37.

II.

THE MIRACLE, Mark 6:38-44.

1.

Give what you havefive barley loaves and two fish, Mark 6:38.

2.

Sit in ranks of fifty and hundreds on the green grass, Mark 6:39-40.

3.

Blessing and multiplying the bread and fish He distributed to the apostles, Mark 6:41.

4.

They ate their fill, Mark 6:42.

5.

They gathered twelve baskets of fragments, Mark 6:43.

6.

There were 5,000 men who ate, Mark 6:44.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Mark 6:30-44. THE APOSTLES HAVING RETURNED, JESUS CROSSES THE LAKE WITH THEM IN SEARCH OF REST, AND THERE FEEDS FIVE THOUSAND. Here, and here alone between the beginning of the Galilean ministry and the week of the Passion, we have four parallel reports. John comes into parallelism with the synoptists at this crossing of the lake, and continues parallel through the record of the return, when Jesus walks on the water, though here we lose our four-fold record by the silence of Luke. John contributes a valuable note of time in the remark that the passover was at hand. The death of the Baptist occurred, therefore, in the spring, and there remained just a year of the ministry of Jesus after the death of the forerunner.

Mark 6:30. The tidings of the death of John would seem to have reached Jesus while he was still alone; but about the same time his company was again gathered around him by the return of the apostles. Of the tone of the report they brought to him nothing is saidwhether cheerful or sadnor is there anywhere any glimpse of them in the work of this mission. They reported what they had done; Mark adds, and what they had taught. In their teaching he would certainly see defects, but his response to their report would be nothing else than cheering: he was training them, and he would not fail to encourage them.

Mark 6:31-32. The invitation was addressed to the twelve alone. Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a whilei.e. a little while, A while is by no means an adequate translation of oligon, a little, He did not expect long rest, but he did hope for a little.The place was probably Capernaum, After the reunion of the company of Jesus the crowd had returned, and those who were coming and going gave them no leisure so much as to eat. The whole of Mark 6:31 is peculiar to Mark, and both parts of it are intensely characteristicthe representation of our Lord's feeling and the graphic description of the circumstances.For the invitation two motives appear, one in Mark and one in Matthew. From Mark we should attribute it to tender care of the apostles, weary from their work, and to his desire to be alone with them for a little. This is one of the touching illustrations of his thoughtfulness toward them, In Matthew it is when Jesus heard of the death of the Baptist that he withdrew privately to the desert place. Joined with the other motive was the desire to be in quiet, that he might have leisure for the thoughts that the death of John suggested. The death of such a man must have been a heavy blow to him, more especially since it was such a death. His personal love for John would make him now a mourner; and the event must also have awakened the thought of Matthew 17:12Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of themand have brought the certainty of his own death freshly before him. It may also have led him to think of modifying his method thenceforth and giving himself more fully, as he did, to the training of his apostles. Thus the two motives were one in effect, driving him away from the shifting, intruding, exacting crowd to be alone with his own.They went away, not by ship, but in the boatthe boat that they were wont to use. They must have gone in the early morning.

Mark 6:33. They succeeded in getting away, but not unobserved. Luke says they went to Bethsaida; John, that Jesus went up into the mountain; Matthew and Mark, merely that the place was desert.i.e. uninhabited. The fact seems to be that they went to Bethsaida, which stood at the extreme north of the lake, where the Jordan enters it (see chap. Mark 8:22), and thence proceeded a little to the south-east, to some convenient point in the hills that rise from the shore of the lake, where they might hope to be alone. It may be that at Bethsaida itself they did not touch at all, and that Luke's mention of it is meant only for a general designation of the locality. The distance from Capernaum to the vicinity of Bethsaida would not be more than six or eight miles, and could be traversed on foot about as quickly as by boat; if the boat was in no haste, more quickly. In the journey for rest there would be no haste, and the pursuing crowd arrived first. The people were out of all citiesi.e. from many towns in that region, especially from those that must be passed on the way. The crowd grew in going. John speaks of Jesus already seated in the mountain, lifting up his eyes and seeing the crowd approaching, which may be a reminiscence of the fact that they came, not all at once, but kept streaming in. John also connects the mention of the coming throng with the fact that the passover was at hand. It may be that some part of the multitude was made up of pilgrims to Jerusalem, who turned aside to see the Prophet of Galilee.

Mark 6:34. He came out. From the boat. The disciples may have been impatient that the ever-present throng was even here; with the Master, however, it was not impatience, but compassion.The activity of the day was rich and various. The motive, pity for the spiritual state of the multitude, which seems to have been often affecting him with a sad surprise. The shepherd-impulse was strong in his heart and the sight of sheep unshepherded always drew it forth. So he began to teach them many things, or, as in Luke, he spoke to them of the kingdom of God, into which as a fold he would gather the unshepherded (Luke 15:4-6; Luke 19:10; John 10:16). He also healed their sick (Matthew), or, as in Luke, healed them that had need of healing. Such was the rest that he found, and such the opportunity for quiet meditation. He had had no leisure to eat; but, while he became a shepherd to the shepherdless, no doubt his heart was full of the sentiment of John 4:32-34: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

Mark 6:35-44. In this paragraph the synoptists are quite closely parallel, save that Matthew condenses a little, as usual, and Mark adds his fresh touches of description. John diverges at the beginning in attributing the inquiry about the possibility of feeding the multitude, not to the amazed disciples when Jesus has proposed that they shall do it, but to Jesus himself, as a question intended to test the faith of Philip. If it were necessary, no doubt the two conversations could be woven in together and harmonized with a tolerable degree of plausibility; but it is more satisfactory to leave them as two independent reports of the same event. Perhaps the independence is worth more to us than an unquestionable harmony would be. (This is true, for the value of several narratives, instead of one, must be due to their independence. Yet harmony is compatible with independence. Nay, if several accounts of the same events are true, they must be in real harmony with one another, though we are sometimes unable to show this. The omission from the narratives of a single connecting act or remark may render it forever impossible for us to see the exact connections or point out the exact sequence of the things reported. But it is desirable to show the harmony of the different narratives wherever this can be done, or at least to show that the several accounts, though independent, need not be supposed to contradict one another at any point, Compare notes on John 6:5).

The suggestion of the apostles (Mark 6:35-36) seemed not only rational, but the only rational one: the people must not be kept away from the necessary comforts, and the disciples thought that even for Jesus to keep them longer would be no kindness. A startling proposal, Give ye them to eat. The words are identical in Matthew, Mark and Luke, showing how sharply the incisive and startling command entered the minds of the hearers. Matthew introduces it with equally astonishing remark, They need not depart, He proposed that which is impossible to men; but he himself was there. There had been as yet no multiplication of food by his hands, so far as we know, except as the turning of water into wine (John 2:1-11) might be called such. The belief of the apostles in his miraculous power ought by this time to have been perfect; but it is to be remembered that he did not propose himself to feed the multitude: he said, Give ye them to eat. After that proposal it was only natural that they should think first of their own resources, and inquire how the thing could be done. It was not altogether unbelief that made them speak of buying bread for the people; he had compelled them to look at the matter from that side. They knew that they had nothing adequate, and were equally sure that it was impracticable to buy.Two hundred pennyworth of bread. The proposal to buy is omitted by Matthew, and the quantity by Luke. This quantity is mentioned in Mark without comment, and in John as insufficient. The denarius (penny is a very poor translation, or rather, not a translation at all) was equal actually to about fifteen cents, but relatively to considerably more. In Matthew 20:2 it appears as a suitable return for a day's labor,In Mark alone are the disciples sent to find how many loaves they have. Their investigation and report are represented in the words when they knew, they say, Literally, knowing, they say, One of Mark's telling brevities. The loaves were thin and brittle; from Luke 11:5-6 it appears that three would be required for a meal for a single person. The fishes are called in John (not elsewhere) opsaria, a word that denotes a condiment, something eaten with bread or other staple food. Hence the idea of small fishes; but that idea cannot be insisted on, as the word had come to be used of fish generally, After the report of a hopeless quantity, Matthew adds the reply of Jesus: Bring them hither to methe one hope of making the small supply sufficient. This is the one hopeful thing to do with Christian gifts and resources of every kindoffer them to him in whose hands a handful can feed a multitude.

The proposal thus to feed the people was another suggestion of the Shepherd's heart. Bodily wants were not beneath his notice, and yet this act had predominantly a spiritual purpose, Brief though the record is, that had been a great day of power and teaching, and such a day might well close with a climax of convincing might. The people must sit down in order to secure orderly and impartial distribution. Heavenly things must be handled with earthly wisdom; bread produced by miracle must be distributed in the best human order. The description of the sitting down is peculiar to Mark, and is unlike anything else in the New Testament. He commanded them to make all sit down by companiessymposia symposia, company by companyupon the green grass. And they sat down prasiai prasiainot exactly in ranks, but rather in blocks like garden-beds, some in blocks of a hundred and some by fifties. The repetition or doubling of the descriptive words is in the Hebrew style. The change of word from the general symposia, company, to the purely descriptive prasiai, garden-beds, shows how the scene arose pictorially in the memory of the narrator, and he again saw the people arranged in squares and looking, in their vari-colored clothing, like flower-beds on the grass.The grass is mentioned by Matthew and John. John says that there was much; Mark alone calls it green grassa part, again of the pictorial memory of the scene. The word corresponds, too, to the season, the passover-time, in spring.

He looked up to heaven, and blessed. So Matthew and Marki.e. he blessed God, praised God in thanksgiving; Luke, he blessed them, the loaves and fishesinvoked the blessing of God upon them; John, he gave thanks. It was simply the grateful prayer before eating, grace before meat, offered by the host or head of the family. (So Luke 24:30; see notes on Mark 14:22-23.) Distribution was made by the hands of the disciples; so expressly in all but John. The separate mention of the giving out of the fishes is a slight link between Mark and John.In Mark's addition to what Matthew and Luke tell, and the two fishes divided he among them all, we see distinctly recorded the deep sense of wonder, and yet the keen observation of an observer close at hand. This story, as told in Mark, can be nothing else than the report of an eye-witness; the evidences are of the plainest and most irrestible kind.As to the process of the miracle, speculations seem to be in vain. Theories of the acceleration of natural processes have been proposed for such occasions, but they were useless, and when closely examined are absurd. If this work was performed at all, it was done by creative power; and that is enough to say of it. It was no insufficient or halfway work: they were all satisfied.In John the command to gather the fragments is mentioned; in the others, only the gathering. The word for baskets here is not the same as in the record of the similar miracle in chap. Mark 8:8. The word here is cophinus, the source of our words coffer and coffin. This, apparently, was the wicker provision-basket that was in common use. The collecting of the fragments shows again, like the order in the distribution of the food, the Saviour's purpose that miracles shall never displace prudence. Though divine power can produce a super-abundant supply, still it is right that nothing be lost.A fresh sign of the independence of the four narratives is found in the manner of recording the number of the multitude. That there were about five thousand men is mentioned by Luke in connection with the hint of the disciples that it was impossible to buy bread for so many; by John, in connection with their sitting down, when their number was ascertained; Mark says at the very end, just after mentioning the great store of fragments that was left, that they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men (about, however, is omitted in the best text); Matthew, at the same point, says that here were about five thousand men, besides women and children. The women and children would be arranged, according to Jewish custom, separately from the men, and in such a multitude would be less in number. Thus there are three different ways of connecting the number with the story, all naturala striking proof of independence.

The immediate effect of the great work is reported by John alone (John 6:14): Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth the prophet that should come into the world. Conviction of his greatness, but conviction of what kind the next section shows. (W. N. Clarke).

FACT QUESTIONS 6:30-44

321.

Here in Mark 6:30 is the first use of the term apostlesshow how appropriate it is just here.

322.

What was the possible multiple purpose in withdrawing to a lonely place? Cf. Matthew 14:13.

323.

What prevented their eating?

324.

Is there any reason to believe there was an excessively large crowd in the district?

325.

Did Jesus and His apostles go to the city of Bethsaida? If not why mention it?

326.

How far from Capernaum to Bethsaida?

327.

Did Jesus have any time for rest or prayer? Was Jesus unhappy about this?

328.

In what way is the independence of two accounts worth more to us than an unquestionable harmony?

329.

Show how the words of Jesus Give ye them to eat entered the minds of the hearers.

330.

Why mention the amount of two hundred shillings worth?

331.

what is wonderfully encouraging about the words of Jesus Bring them hither to me.

332.

Show the difference in the use of the two words symposia and prasiai.

333.

Why bless the loaves and fish?

334.

What are the evidences of an eyewitness in the description?

335.

What particular type of miracle was this?

336.

Show the striking proof of accurate independent report on the counting of the 5,000.

337.

What kind of baskets were used?

338.

What was the reaction of the miracle on the multitude?