The Feeding of the Five Thousand

S. Mark vi. 30–44

S. Mark calls our attention to the motive for our Lord’s retreat from Galilee. It was the need of rest for the Apostles after the fatigues of their mission. And what a very natural scene it is to which he introduces us! An expedition had gone out, and had been very successful, and those who had taken part in it were eager to narrate their experiences to Him Who had sent them forth. We can almost see Him seated in their midst as they pour into His ears the stirring tale. He knew it all even before they began, for His eye had never been off them, and His spirit never absent from their side, but He listened with patience as they told the wonders of their travel, of deaf ears unstopped, and blind eyes restored to sight, and fevers subdued by a single touch, and demoniacs dispossessed. No sooner was the story told than we fancy we can hear them in all the enthusiasm of success asking to be sent out again. But what was the answer? “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” It must have sounded cold and chilling, but He knew that exhausted nature must needs be repaired. “Man goeth forth to his labour until the evening” — but only so far. Night follows day, and rest succeeds to toil. So it was that our Lord counselled a temporary withdrawal from active work. The spot that He selected was one of the mountains on the further side of the lake, and they entered into the boat and rowed across. They could hardly have enjoyed their seclusion more than an hour or two before their place of retreat was discovered, and He had no alternative but to come forth and preach to the crowds whom from the mountain range He saw gathering together. Many people, it is said, having observed the direction of the boat, “went afoot thither,” crossing the Jordan where it flows into the lake, and going in search of Him in the “desert place,” which lay on the north-eastern shore. Many more were pilgrims who had turned aside from the great road by which travellers went from Caesarea Philippi and the northern district to Jerusalem. It was customary for the inhabitants of neighbouring villages to join together, both for security and for company, and to travel in one long caravan up to the Annual Feasts. One such was then impending. It is very significant that all the Evangelists call special attention to the number of men, for it is well known that, except with certain limitations, the attendance of women was not required at the Feasts.

Jesus was moved with compassion at the sight, and began at once to teach them, and heal their sicknesses; and as they hung spell-bound on His lips, and listened with rapt attention, the day wore on, and the disciples became anxious and fearful of what might happen if such a great mass of people should be overtaken by nightfall far from shelter or human habitation. S. John gives us to understand that the difficulty of feeding the multitudes had been broached by our Lord Himself, and that He had consulted Philip on the possible sources of supply. Philip, making a rough calculation of the numbers, intimated that to purchase the requisite food would take above two hundred pence, a larger sum perhaps than they had at the time in the common purse. Our Lord, knowing what He would do, returned to His teaching; but the question which had been started exercised the minds of the Apostles, and as they were quite unable to devise any means for meeting the necessity, and it was now growing very late, they came to Him in a body, and asked Him to dismiss the people that they might go and provide for themselves. To their astonishment He declined, and said, “Give ye them to eat.” They asked at once, perhaps in irony, whether He intended that they should carry out Philip’s suggestion, but He replied by asking what amount of food they actually had. The answer, especially as recorded by S. John, showed the utter insufficiency of the store. There was a little boy — the fishers’ lad, no doubt, whom they had brought from the boat to carry their food — with five loaves, and those none of the best, for they were made of barley, and two small fishes, — not such as would satisfy hunger, but serving only to give relish 1 and a savoury taste to their common bread.

But “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” No sooner did Christ see that the Apostles were satisfied that no ordinary means could avail, than He prepared for an exhibition of miraculous power. Let them make the men sit down on the grass. It was fresh and green at the time, for the spring rainfall was only just over; and the crowd was at once divided and broken up into manageable portions — that there might be no confusion, that none might be passed over or pushed aside — and arranged into “ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.” The peculiar word which is translated “ranks,” indicates that the people were seated in “separate detachments,” with sufficient space left to move freely between them; but it is right to mention that, according to another etymology, it signifies a “bed of herbs or flowers,” and its usage would then illustrate S. Mark’s picturesqueness, the bright Eastern costumes of the compact masses upon the brilliant green having suggested to an eye-witness a close resemblance to a bright and well-ordered garden.

However this may be, when all was arranged He took the loaves and fishes into His hands, and, according to the Jewish ordinance, as the Head of the house in which He presided, “gave thanks,” no doubt in the familiar form of “Grace:” “Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, Who bringest forth bread from the earth.” It was followed by a marvellous increase. The method or process of the multiplication is not revealed; whether it took place in Christ’s hands, or in the hands of the disciples, it is impossible to say. S. Chrysostom accepts the latter supposition, and it would certainly seem the most convenient, and perhaps the most significant also. The result, however, was that all were filled. An almost startling announcement followed: “Gather up the fragments.” It must have sounded strange, indeed, coming from the lips of One Who could multiply things as He would; but He designed to teach His disciples that no creative power should ever supersede careful thrift, that the most prodigal bounty is fitly accompanied by the nicest economy. Obedient to His word the disciples unstrapped the little baskets 2 which all Jews were wont to carry when travelling from home, and filled them with the fragments; and behold “there was more of what remained over than of the original stock.” It may have been intended to leave no doubt that a distinct creative act had been performed: that the multitudes had been satisfied, not by any sudden cessation of the cravings of hunger, but by an exercise of preternatural power on the part of Him by Whom “all things were made,” and without Whom “was not anything made that was made.”

Now it cannot have been accidental that all four Evangelists should have recorded this miracle, and with so much more fulness of detail than is usually met with. There is no apparent reason for such prominence in its primary teaching. S. Hilary says the whole circumstance is a series of types. One or two will suffice for our present consideration. In all l the accounts it has been carefully recorded, with only a slight variety of expression, that after blessing and breaking the bread the Divine Master gave it to the disciples, and “the disciples distributed it to them that were set down.”

Those multitudes, collected “out of all cities,” foreshadowed the numbers of people who should be gathered into the Catholic Church “out of every nation under heaven.” The appearance of our Blessed Lord standing in their midst, and miraculously providing from His Own hand for their bodily wants, signified the place which He intended to occupy as the Head of the Church, able and willing to supply out of the inexhaustible fulness of His bounty whatsoever men of every clime, and age, and degree, should need for the support of their spiritual life.

The twelve disciples receiving the bread which He had blessed, and distributing it to the people, after they were set down and arranged in convenient groups, were but the first in the line of a duly-appointed and unbroken Ministry, from whom, through all the ages of the Church’s history, the separate

“clean” food on a journey. It was such an indispensable article that in Juvenal’s time the Jews were ridiculed for possessing nothing but this and a wisp of hay to serve as a pillow. — Juvenal, Sat. iii. 14. communities of the One Body were destined to receive the Immortal Food.

And if we may draw a still further analogy, or press that more closely which has already been drawn, we should note the fact that Christ is carefully pointed out as the One Source from Which the supply was taken, though it is not revealed whether the real increase was made in His Own, or in the hands of the Apostles; and yet further, that the bread was given only after the multitude had been taught at His mouth. It is the clearest evidence that the Church must look to Him, and Him alone, as her “stay and support,” the Teacher and Feeder of her people. He will feed her in soul and spirit with His doctrine, and sacramentally with His Own most precious Body and Blood; and though we may grasp the teaching, as the multitudes doubtless were able to do in a measure, we must expect the manner of the continued gift of His Sacramental Body to be shrouded in mystery, in the same way as the method by which the loaves were multiplied was hidden from their eyes.

Note: There were other motives which suggested His leaving Galilee. S. Matt, xiv. 13 specifies the report of the Baptist’s death. Common prudence would lead Him to avoid unnecessary danger — S. Matt. x. 23.

Note: “The Songs of Degrees,” viz., Psalms cxx. to cxxxiv., were probably sung by the company on the” goings-up” to the Feasts. Ps. cxxi. was appropriate to their last halt within sight of Jerusalem; Ps. cxxii. to their entrance within the gates of the city.

Note: These were a kind of sardine. They were caught in large quantities in the lake, dried and salted, and eaten with bread by the common people. The peculiar word used by S. John — 6lf/dpLov — indicates local knowledge. Cf. Westcott on the Fourth Gospel, and Edersheim, Life and Times, i. 681, 682. 30-44

Note: TTpacrial — areolatim — is usually derived from irpd<roi>, a leek or onion. Most commentators (Farrar, Geikie, etc.) have assumed that it was a” flower “bed, and have seen in it an apt figure for the gay scene. But there is no trace of irpaaov being used of a flower. Possibly it is a foreign word with the same root as “Pharisee,” indicating “separation.”

Note: The “cophinus” was a sort of wicker wallet in which a Jew carried

Note: In S. John vi. 11 the direct mention of this is omitted in the best MSS., but it may be inferred from the general sense, as well as from the 5i^5w/ce, here substituted for £5w/ce of the other Evangelists.