Mark 8:1-10--Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand

Mark 8:1-10
English Standard Version
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Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
8 In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4 And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” 5 And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6 And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. 7 And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8 And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

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This is a different miracle than the Feeding of the 5,000.  This is in the land of the east of the Sea of Galilee in the "wilderness" area near the Gentile towns and villages of the Decapolis that Jesus was ministering too (there were no large cities nearby for the people to go to in order to buy food this time--they were several days away from any populated area).  This miracle while a "sign" was not performed as much to be a sign as the Feeding of the 5,000 was (there is no "I AM" statement accompanying this miracle that Jesus is backing up with the miracle to prove that He is who He claimed to be--those signs were typically for the Jews, but that is a mostly Gentile audience now).  No, Jesus just sees people following after Him that are so eager to hear everything that He has to say that they didn't pay any attention to their own physical needs and they are the point where if Jesus doesn't act, they will die in the wilderness because they were hanging on His every word and wouldn't leave, even to go feed their own stomachs.  They were living by the principle of "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

Jesus didn't wait for the disciples or the crowd to recognize the need this time.  He asked the disciples how much bread they had (it probably was from their own provisions they had brought this time--they didn't have to find a boy in the crowd like last time) and they put their seven loaves and the few small fish they had in the hands of Jesus so that He could multiply them--they knew He could do this as they had seen Him do it before, but the Gentile crowds had not seen this, yet they still had faith they were supposed to stay and listen to Jesus and that somehow God would take care of them.  His words were more important to them than bread.

He directed the crowd to sit down (for they had been standing for several days listening to Him teach), and He had the apostles distribute the bread and fish among the people.  The people ate until they were satisfied (don't miss that) --they couldn't eat another bite of food because they fully filled.  Jesus doesn't do anything halfway.  When He feeds you, He's going to make sure there is enough and that there is some leftover as well.  We see that here that there are seven basketfuls (these baskets were the kind that were big enough for an adult man to fit inside of) leftover.  That's probably more than the twelve small baskets that would be more like the size of the baskets that many of us would use to carry eggs or that some churches use for offering baskets.

So, we see that Jesus seems to be answering the question that we probably had in our minds after His conversation with the Syrophoenician woman, "Just how much is there in "crumbs" for the Gentiles to get?"  Jesus' answer is that there is more than enough for the Jews and the Gentiles to be filled to satisfaction and to have plenty leftover as His grace and mercy are infinite and beyond measure.  We should never think of God's salvation as being only for people like us but not for another group of people different than us.  God wants people from every group of people to come to Him for salvation.

When He was done, Jesus got in the boat and went back across the Sea of Galilee to the west side in the region of Galilee where He did most of His ministry (and it appears because He landed somewhere close to Capernaum that He probably was headed "home" to rest).  We'll see moving forward that Jesus is going to be much more open now about His mission and will be much more confrontational with the Pharisees--all this is part of the plan to move things forward so that they are accomplished in God's way an in God's time.