Mark 6:30-44--Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Mark 6:30-44
English Standard Version
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Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

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The apostles returned from being sent out.  Jesus knew they would be tired and would need time for rest, so He tried to take them to a desolate place, but the crowds followed them and there was no rest for the weary--no one even had time to eat.  So, they tried getting into the boat (probably Simon Peter's boat) and going to a desolate place that way, but many of the people saw what they were doing and followed after them on foot, running to keep up with the boat and maybe even beating it to its destination so that the same crowds they were trying to avoid were there waiting for them on the other side.

Jesus saw the people and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, so He sat down and began to teach them many things (in parables).  When it started to get late, Jesus's disciples told Him to send the crowds away so that they could go into the nearby villages to buy something to eat, but He responded that they should give the people something to eat.  After some quick accounting by Philip and Andrew, they responded that it would cost them 200 denarii (a denarius was about a day's wage--so this is more than 6-month's of pay) just to buy bread for all the people in the crowd, and that the only food they can find among the people in the crowd is a boy with five loaves and two fish (the boy's lunch--these are not large loaves of bread but probably more what we would think of as a dinner roll).

He commanded the multitude to sit down in groups (while He had been teaching, He was sitting and they had been standing), and He took the loaves and the fish and looked up to heaven and blessed them and gave the pieces to the disciples to set before the people.  The people ate and were satisfied (they were filled to the point where they could not eat anything more).  After everyone was finished, there were twelve baskets full of scraps left over so that each apostle had a small basket of scraps.  After some more accounting done by the apostles, they realized that the size of the crowd that had been fed was 5,000 men, not counting the women and children.  This is the first time that Jesus fed a multitude like this--there will be a similar miracle later when He feeds a group of 4,000 men (probably also not counting the women and children).  This time the audience was mostly Jewish, and we'll see from other gospel accounts that this should have been a sign to the Jews that Jesus was greater than Moses, but the Jews asked for free bread every day like when they were in the wilderness and wanted more signs when they would not believe the signs they had already been given.  We see some confrontation in the gospel of John where Jesus has hard words for the crowds, even though He has had compassion on them, that unless they will eat His flesh and drink His blood, they have no part in Him and cannot be His disciples for He is the Bread of Life.  Many of the people in the crowd were offended by these words to the point that Jesus wondered if the apostles would leave Him too, but Peter answered for the group saying "Where will we go?  You have the words of life!"  This miracle was also a time of winnowing then so that Jesus was sorting the true believers from those that were just trying to ride His coattails to get a free lunch (literally).  He begins at this point publicly declaring all the hardships that He will go through and that there is great cost to being His disciple where anyone who wants to follow after Him will have to be willing to take up their cross and follow after Him.  This made the crowds following after Him for these last days much smaller and He had much more opportunity to be alone with His apostles and teach them many things that He wanted them to know before He died, rose again and returned to heaven.