TEXT [Commentary]

3. Jesus feeds five thousand (6:30-44; cf. Matt 14:13-21; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13)

30 The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. 31 Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.

32 So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. 33 But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. 34 Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”

37 But Jesus said, “You feed them.”

“With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money[*] to buy food for all these people!”

38 “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.”

They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”

39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed.[*]

NOTES

6:31 to a quiet place. This refers to a place in the wilderness (erēmos [TG2048A, ZG2245]), which 6:39 makes clear was not a wasteland but an isolated location. In 1:35, Jesus sought such a place to pray. By 1:45, he had to seek such space in order to handle the crowds, which were now so great that he needed a lonely place away from where he was ministering. In the midst of opposition, Jesus was still drawing crowds, and this continued to make him a threat. In John 6, this miracle is parallel to the provision of manna in the wilderness of the Exodus. It may be that the wilderness locale evoked such symbolism. The exact location of this event is not known. If Jesus was ministering in his normal setting, he could have been anywhere on the northern half of the Sea of Galilee.

6:34 had compassion on them. The leaderless condition of the people moved Jesus to compassion and he taught them despite his need for quiet time. Jesus was often moved to act out of his compassion (1:41; 6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Matt 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Luke 7:13).

6:37 You feed them. The disciples urged Jesus to let the people go get a meal since it was late and they had no food. Instead, Jesus challenged the disciples to feed the crowd.

We’d have to work for months. The Gr. indicates wages of 200 denarii (so NLT mg). This was almost a half-year’s labor. The disciples were shocked that Jesus would expect them to buy and haul such provisions to this locale. There is almost a note of rebuke in their response that Jesus would make such a crazy suggestion. The disciples are totally clueless as to Jesus’ real intent in making such a provision. This stark portrayal of them is softened in the parallel Gospels.

6:39 green grass. This is a particularly vivid detail. The scene has a serene, pastoral feel (cf. Ps 23:1-2), even though it was not yet clear where all the food would come from. The mood contrasts with the dilemma.

6:40 fifty or a hundred. Such groupings would facilitate distribution.

6:41 He also divided the fish for everyone to share. The Gr. explicitly says that two fish were divided among the vast crowd. Although some associate this scene with the Last Supper (see 14:23), the way Jesus gives thanks here is generic to all such scenes. The point is that all had their needs met and were satisfied by what Jesus provided (6:42). The miracle of Jesus’ creative power also affirmed his ability to give sustenance.

6:43 twelve baskets. Jesus provided even more resources than were needed. The baskets in which the excess was collected were large enough to hold a human (Acts 9:25; Taylor 1966:325). The “twelve” may point to meeting the needs of the twelve tribes of Israel.

6:44 5,000 men. The crowd was significantly large. Since there were 5,000 men, the crowd was actually larger.

COMMENTARY [Text]

In this section, we see Jesus as provider and protector. In this scene, he compassionately feeds a people in need. The idea of people lacking a shepherd has rich Old Testament roots. In Numbers 27:17, Moses appointed Joshua to such a role in view of his own impending death, so that the people would not be sheep without a shepherd. In Ezekiel 34, God rebuked the Jewish leaders for not being the shepherds he had called them to be (see Ezek 34:4). God said that he would be their shepherd, and that he would give them a shepherd from the house of David (Ezek 34:24). Mark portrays Jesus as stepping into that role, a depiction shared by Johns’ Gospel (esp. John 10). Jesus was a leader-shepherd like Moses and Joshua, but greater than them because Jesus, through his creative power, provided a crowd of 5,000 men with an abundance of food. He not only met their need, but he did so to overflowing, as twelve huge baskets were filled with leftovers. Jesus was more than able to meet their basic needs.

All of this happened through the disciples that Jesus urged to make provision for the crowd. Incredulous at first, the disciples followed Jesus’ instructions and met the people’s need. Though real food was given, the scene is symbolic of how the disciples would be able to provide life-giving nourishment to those they served. A picture of their future ministry emerges here, although subsequent events show that they did not yet grasp the point.

A note on structure is also helpful here. We have two miracles that mention feeding (6:37, 52) connected to the disciple’s failure framing a section which centers first on the connection between the disciples’ failure and the Pharisees (also called “hardened” in 3:5 and 10:5 as the disciples are in 6:52) and then on the “little people” who do well. Failure is not a given. Some get it.