Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 6:30
And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
30 44. Return of the Twelve. Feeding of the Five Thousand
30. gathered themselves together ] Their brief tentative mission was now over, and they returned to Capernaum.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And the apostles gathered themselves together – That is, those whom he had sent out two and two, Mar 4:7. Having traveled around the country, they returned and met the Saviour at Capernaum.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mar 6:30-31
Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place.
The Saviours invitation to rest
I. Note the tenderness of Christ.
II. Labour lightened is not lost.
III. Spiritual work especially needs rest.
IV. The breezy mountainside, away from men, still gives the finest sort of rest.
V. Rest never seems to be had where you are, but always other-where; and sometimes when you reach the quietest spot, the disturbing element has gone there before you. (R. Glover.)
The necessity for rest
God has signified this to us in His material creation. He has made the earth to revolve on her axis in a way that brings her at stated seasons under light and shade; and He has proportioned the strength of man to those seasons.
I. We need rest physically. The hands begin to slacken and the eyes to close when God draws the curtain. It is one of those adaptations which show Gods kindly purpose. The thoughtless or covetous over-tension of our own powers the hard driving of those under our control, the feeling that we can never get enough work out of our fellow creatures, the evil eye cast on their well-earned rest or harmless recreation, are all to be denounced and condemned.
II. This law applies also to mental exertion. The mind must at times look away from things, as well as at them, if it is to see clearly and soundly. This is not necessarily waste time; when the mind is lying fallow it may be laying up capacity of stronger growth.
III. The spiritual faculties are subject to the same law. A continual strain of active religious work is apt to deaden feeling and produce formality. (John Ker, D. D.)
Recreative rest
I. Recreative rest is recognized by God as a necessity for man.
II. It should have a just relation to earnest work. Rest is the shadow thrown by the substance work, and you reach the shadow when you have passed by the substance which throws it.
III. It is intended to exercise a wholesome influence on character. If it fits us for doing our work better, it is right; otherwise, it is wrong. The test is, Can we engage in it in conscious fellowship with Christ? (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
The Christian uses of leisure
It is not an indolent animal repose, but that rest of refreshment which befits those who have souls. Its elements are-
I. Communion with outward nature. The world was made not merely for the support of mans body, but also for the nurture of his mind and spirit. What architect would build his house only with an eye to stores and animal comforts, paying no regard to its being a home for a man, with windows opening on wide expanses of land and sea, or quiet nooks of homely beauty? We should endeavour to make the inner world of our thoughts about God and spiritual things not a separate thing from the world of creation, but with a union like that between body and soul. If we could learn to do this aright, it would strengthen us in good thoughts, and relieve doubts and calm anxieties. Nature can do very little for us if we have no perception of a Divine Spirit breathing through it; but very much if the Great Interpreter is with us. If we surrender ourselves to this Teacher He can show us wide views through narrow windows, and speak lessons of deep calm in short moments.
II. Intercourse with fellow Christians. There will always be a want in a mans religious nature it he has not come into contact with hearts around him that are beating with a Divine life to the pulse of the present time. Every age, every circle, has its lessons from God, and no one can learn them all alone. Let us be more frank and confidential, also more natural, in our talk on these matters concerning our mutual faith and hope.
III. A closer converse with the Master. When we are doing our appointed work in Gods world, or labouring actively for the good of others, our minds are dispersed among outward employments; we may be serving God very truly all the time, but we are careful about many things, and have not leisure to sit at His feet and speak to Him about our own individual wants. It is essential that we should from time to time secure leisure for this. The flame of devotion will not burn very long or very bright unless you have oil in your vessels with your lamps. (John Ker, D. D.)
Best by the way
Rest is an absolute necessity of life; without it the body dies. The traveller on a journey looks forward to some spot where he can stay a while. The sailor has his haven where he can for a time furl his sails and find shelter from the storm and tempest. The wanderer in the hot desert strains his eyes to see the one green spot in all that sandy waste where there are trees and water and the promise of rest. And the soul needs rest as well as the body. Just as too much excitement and hurry and over-work wear out our bodily strength, so our spiritual life, the life of the soul, becomes faint and weak without rest. On our journey from earth to heaven we need some quiet harbours, some peaceful spots, where we can find rest. Jesus has built such cities of refuge for us, His pilgrims, and provided quiet havens for His people as they pass over the waves of this troublesome world.
I. The services and sacraments of the Church. There is a famous bell in a certain church abroad known as the Poor Sinners Bell. This is how it got its name. Five hundred years ago a bell founder was engaged in casting this bell. For a few moments he left a boy in charge of the furnace, charging him not to touch the apparatus which held the molten metal in the cauldron. The boy disobeyed his master, and meddled with the handle. Instantly the liquid metal began to pour into the mould. The terrified boy ran to tell the bell founder, who, thinking his great work was ruined, struck the boy in a fit of passion and killed him. When the metal was cold, the bell, instead of being spoiled, was found to be perfect in shape and singularly sweet in tone. The unhappy bell founder gave himself up for the murder of the boy, and as he was led to execution the Poor Sinners Bell rang out sweetly, inviting all men to pray for the doomed man, and warning all men of the effects of disobedience and anger. Is there no Poor Sinners Bell among us? Does the church bell bring no message to you?
II. Private prayer.
III. Bible reading. Put your heart into this, and you will find a refreshment, a resting place. It will take you for a time out of the world, out of the great, busy, noisy Vanity Fair, and you can, as it were, walk in Gods garden, or wander through His great picture gallery. Men or women who have lived and died in faith will be your companions, your examples. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)
Rest and work
I. There is no true rest which has not been earned by work.
II. The duty of resting has the same reasons as the duty of working.
III. Solitude is the proper refreshment after public work, and preparation for it.
IV. The spirit can never be at leisure from compassion, sympathy, love. (E. Johnson, M. A.)
No leisure
Duty of religious teachers to point out and rebuke social evils. One of these is the want of leisure. A fair amount of labour is necessary and desirable, but when work is so absorbing that mind, affections, and spiritual life are neglected, we sin against law of nature and God. So far as labour out of doors is concerned, God Himself interposes by drawing the curtain of night; but in certain trades, through the ambition of the trader or the carelessness of the general public, young people are often kept on their feet twelve or fifteen hours, with scarcely time allowed to swallow a morsel of food. The wrongs of these silent sufferers ought to be redressed. Let us not forget-
I. That earnest work is Divinely appointed. Before the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Afterwards in the fourth commandment. Labour and rest are linked together by God in indissoluble bonds. Work is necessary to
(1) human progress;
(2) the preservation of society;
(3) the nobility of man.
I confess that I sympathize very much with the American who was told by an English tourist that he was surprised to find no gentlemen in his country. What are they? was the reply. Oh, said he, people who dont work for their living. Yes, we have some of them, replied the shrewd New Englander, only we call them tramps. Thank God if the necessity of work, and the opportunity, and the power for work are yours; and in whatever sphere of life you are placed, pray that you may deserve at last the epitaph which was put, at his own request, on the tomb of one of the bravest and most brilliant Christian soldiers England ever had: Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty.
II. That suitable leisure is imperatively required. Observe the evils resulting from long hours of labour.
1. Physical. Constant strain and tension.
2. Mental. No chance of improving the mind by reading, classes, societies, etc.
3. Moral When the young people do get free, scarcely anything is open to them but what may tend to their corruption. And the temptation comes at a time when there is the more danger of yielding to it, from the reaction which follows continuous work and induces a craving for excitement.
4. Religious. Home training rendered impossible. Lords Day almost necessarily devoted exclusively to bodily rest and recreation, and so worship neglected.
III. That this just claim for leisure is often disregarded. Things are, in some respects, much better than they were. The wholesale houses, and many offices, close earlier than before, and Saturday is a half holiday. But this improvement only affects certain trades and districts. Those in retail shops-milliners, dressmakers, etc., remain unrelieved. Leisure is the more required now, because work is done much more strenuously and exhaustingly than hitherto.
IV. Remedies.
1. Combination among employes.
2. Agreement among employers. It is for their own interest.
3. More enlightened public opinion, resulting in altered practice.
(1) Give up late shopping, so that there shall no longer be a demand for protracted labour.
(2) Encourage employers who show their willingness to do what is right in this matter.
(3) Allow a reasonable time for execution of orders, so that the beautiful dress at a party shall not be hideous in the sight of angels by the stains of tears and blood they alone can see. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
A victim to want of leisure
A well-known visitor among the poor found living in a notorious court a woman who was known as the Buttonhole Queen, who often gave work away, poor though she was, to those poorer than herself. Reserved as she appeared to be, she was at last induced to tell her story, which accounted for the interest she took in the poor girls around her; and poor they were, for fancy the misery of making 2,880 buttonholes in order to earn 10s., and having no time even to cry! Her story was this: Her daughter had been apprenticed to a milliner at the West End. She was just over sixteen, and a bright young Christian. She got through her first season without breaking down; but the second was too much for her. She did not complain, but one day she was brought home in a cab, having broken a blood vessel, and there she lay, propped up by pillows, her face white as death, except for two spots where it had been flecked by her own blood. To use the mothers own words: She smiled as she saw me, and then we carried her in, and when the ethers were gone she clung round my neck, and laying her pretty head on my shoulder, she whispered, Mother, my own mother, Ive come home to die! Killed by late hours! She lingered for three months, and then she passed away, but not before she had left a message which became the life inspiration of her mother: For my sake be kind to the girls like me; and that message, with Gods blessing, may make some of you think and resolve, as it did the poor Buttonhole Queen. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Ministers need rest
The apostles were well-nigh overwhelmed with their labours, for work had made work: they were cumbered with much serving-not preaching the gospel only, but healing and exorcising; their meals and needful rest were broken in upon by importunate crowds; and so the Lord, to teach us that His ministers must have time for needful refreshment, does not recruit them by a miracle, but insists upon their using natural means. And is it not so now? Is not many an active and self-denying minister well-nigh broken down and worn out, because there is no time for thought and rest, and tranquil meditation, and a change of scene? Rich men, with many roomed mansions, could not do a greater kindness to poor overworked ministers than by inviting them from their crowded streets and alleys to find a little rest and leisure in their multitudes of unused apartments. (M. F. Sadler.)
Rest in nature
For all organic life God has provided periods of repose, during which repair goes on in order to counteract the waste caused by activity. In the springtime we see movement and stir in gardens, fields, and hedgerows, which continues till the fruits are gathered in and the leaves fall; but then winters quiet again settles down over all, and nature is at rest. Even the flowers have their time for closing their petals, and their sleeping hours come so regularly, and yet are so varied in distribution among them, that botanists can construct a floral clock out of our English wildflowers, and tell the hour of night or day by their opening or closing. The same God who created the flowers and appointed the seasons, ordained the laws of Israel, and by these definite seasons of rest were set apart for the people-the Sabbath, the Jubilee year, and the annual festivals. Indeed, in every age and every land, the coming of night and the victory of sleep are hints of what God has ordained for man. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
The season of rest
The first of these principles is that rest is the result and the fruit of labour and toil; it is the right and duty of workers. The second principle which I venture to lay down with reference to recreation is this-that its proper object is to prepare us for further work. There is yet one other principle to be noticed in connection with our subject, viz., that in our rest and recreation we should maintain a consciousness of Gods presence, and carry out the apostolic rule-whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (J. F. Kitto, M. A.)
Recreation
Luther used to sport with his children; Edmund Burke used to caress his favourite horse; Thomas Chalmers, in the dark hour of the Churchs disruption, played kite for recreation-as I was told by his own daughter; and the busy Christ said to the busy apostles: Come ye apart awhile into the desert and rest yourselves. And I have observed that they who do not know how to rest do not know how to work. (Dr. Talmage.)
Seclusion with Christ
It was a time of mourning. Our Lord had just heard of the death of a near kinsman; that lion-hearted man who had confronted a king in his adultery, and had given his life as a martyr. His death, with its circumstances, affected no doubt with more than common sorrow the tender, loving, most human heart of Jesus. Also it was one of those dangerous times in human life, at which the accomplishment of a difficult duty is apt to throw us off our guard, and through self-complacency to induce slumber. The apostles had just returned from a difficult mission, and had come back to report to their Master both what they had done and what they had taught. And for this third reason also. Theirs was a busy life, a life of great unrest at all times: there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. For some purposes indeed the world cannot be too much with us. With it and in it lies our work. To encourage the activities, to direct the energies. Besides which, there are not only virtues which can have no exercise but in society-there are also many faults which spring up inevitably in solitude. There are some influences of the world which need a strong counteraction. One of these is irritation. Another of these evil influences is what must be called, in popular language, worldliness. And there is this, too, in the presence of the world, that it keeps under, of necessity, the lively action of conscience, and makes any direct access to God an absolute impossibility. A Christian man thinks it no part of religion, but the very contrary, to do his worldly business badly. If he is to do it well, he must give his thoughts to it. If he is to give his thoughts to it, the lively presence of high and holy topics of meditation is scarcely possible. The correcting necessity-Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile. This seclusion may be either periodical or occasional. Think what night is, and then say what we should be without it. And that which night is, in one aspect, as a periodical withdrawal from the injurious influences of the multitude, that, in another point of view, and yet more impressively, is Gods day of rest, the blessed Resurrection day, the Christian Sunday. One He visits with a loss, and one with a misfortune, and one with a bereavement, and one with disease. But there remains just one caution. We must not wait for this seclusion by Christ Himself. If Christ comes not to take us aside, we must go aside to Him. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.)
The higher use of retirement
And after the weary six days have seen him burning, glowing, sacked, replenished, and sacked again, Sunday comes; and thousands of men do on Sunday what railroads do-run the old engine into the machine shop, and make the needed repairs, that it may be fit to start again on Monday. So men, dealing in the affairs of life, and coming under its excitements, go into retirement purely and merely to rest, simply to refit. It is a life that is not worthy of a man. It is a life that certainly is adverse, in all its influences, to the plenary development of that which makes man the noblest animal on the globe. We do not need retirement because we are so weary: we need it, and enough of it, and we need it under certain right circumstances, in order that we may think, consider, and know what we are, where we are, and what we are doing. (H. W. Beecher.)
Retirement for observation
Then we need these periods of rest for taking new observations. Every ship that makes a voyage, after fogs or storms obscured the sky, seizes the first moment of starlight or sunlight to take observations. The seamen have been going by dead reckoning or by no reckoning, but when they get an opportunity to make an observation, they can very soon tell by computation where they are. (H. W. Beecher.)
Rest from one set of ideas
One fact which we cannot afford to overlook is that the instrument of the soul in all its mental and emotional workings is a material brain, undergoing with each modification of thought and play of feeling a corresponding molecular change. In common with every other bodily organ, its healthy activity is limited by its need of nutrition and sleep. Besides, the researches of men like Professor Ferrier have proved that there is a localization of faculty in the brain, so that persevering without intermission in one set of ideas has an effect upon it corresponding to the exclusive use of one set of muscles in another part of the body, with similar results also of disproportionate development and consequent incompleteness of mental character. These are only physiological explanations of the well-established facts of experience, that work without play induces dulness, that the bow must sometimes be unbent, that there must be in mental culture not only a rotation of various crops, but periodical fallows, or barrenness will be the result. In the name of morality and religion, also, a protest may be raised against unceasing and exclusive occupation for the welfare of others, as the ideal of a worthy life. God sent us into the world to grow and realize His own thought in creating us. If human welfare is an end of our existence, our own welfare is, at least, part of it. But it is inconsistent with our welfare to dwarf and repress any part of our God-given nature. We were intended to grow all round, on our north side as well as on the side that faces the sun. The sense of melody, the feeling of humour, the perception of beauty in form and colour, and the social instinct, are as much from God as our conscience of right and wrong. They are of immeasurably less importance, but of some importance, nevertheless. Their culture cannot be neglected, or their cravings repressed, without a corresponding loss of mental symmetry. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.)
The richer for rest
The first element of recreation is rest. Change of employment brings a measure of relief, but no change of employment will dispense with the necessity there is for rest. To suppose that the time spent in it is so much deducted from the worlds welfare or our own is a great mistake. In a speech delivered by Lord Macaulay, more than thirty years ago, advocating a shortening of the hours of labour, he describes, in language as true as it is eloquent, the material advantages this country has derived from the observance of the Sabbath. He says: The natural difference between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not poorer, but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies ill the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal vigour. Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger, and healthier, and wiser, and better, can make it poorer. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.)
Retirement essential to the growth of true piety
There were two classes to whom this invitation was addressed-the mourners for John Baptist (see preceding verses, and Mat 14:12-13)
and the triumphant apostles, exulting, excited, and perhaps unduly elated (verse 30).
I. The circumstances in which the Saviour makes this appeal.
1. On the Lords day.
2. Frequent intervals during the week.
3. Seasons of sickness.
4. Various relative trials.
II. The nature of the retirement to which we are invited.
1. Not simply withdrawal from others. You may live aloof from the world, and yet not be with Christ.
2. Not monkish seclusion. It was only for awhile. Not like the hermits of the deserts.
3. To enjoy His sympathy.
4. To listen to His instructions; to learn His truth.
5. To feel the sanctifying effect of His presence.
III. The purposes for which this retirement is needed-They had not leisure so much as to eat.
1. Our physical nature requires it.
2. For our spiritual health. The late Sir E. Parry was remarkable for his regular observance of devotional exercise on board his ship, and equally for his skill and presence of mind in times of danger. Keep yourselves in the love of God. There is much growth of a warm, still, summers night, when the dew is quietly descending on the plant.
3. To prepare us for usefulness. Lamps must be secretly fed with holy oil.
4. To prepare us to be alone with Christ at last.
(1) Here is a test for your state. Can you bear His presence alone.
(2) Secure time fur being alone with Christ. By rising early; by being less in company with the world; by planning how you will spend a day.
(3) Assist others to obtain it. Let employers afford it to their servants. (Studies)
.
Rest awhile
It will amply repay the pilgrim to turn aside sometimes from the beaten track; for the incidental teachings of the Blessed Life, like the wild flowers of the glen, or the fern sheltering in the fissure, or the silver stream dripping from the rock, or the still pool with its myriad beauties, are no inconsiderable element in the attainment of that wisdom whose ways are pleasantness, and whose paths are peace. The lessons of the story are broad and obvious. Foregoing the lessons of this story as a whole, it will be profitable to give our attention to that one feature of it which is enshrined in the words: Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.
I. For with what graphic force do the words on which the Masters invitation was based describe the unrest of today-There were many coming and going. We meet it everywhere. On all sides one is brought face to face with work-exciting, bewildering, exhausting. This is not an eccentricity, an abnormal and therefore transitional phenomenon; it is a necessity of the times. The energy which at one time commanded a fortune is now needed to win ones daily bread. Inventions which once excited the wonder of the world are now regarded as curiosities. The scholarship which a century ago secured a European reputation now provokes a smile. This is growing upon us. Such a state of things cannot be viewed without anxiety. Physiologically, or from the standpoint of the political economist, this wear and tear of life is serious. In the home life of today the absorbing interests of the outside world are telling with terrible force. But it is in its influence upon the moral and religious life that the present unrest is to be viewed with the gravest anxiety. The claims of the day upon a mans thought, energy, time, are not only perilous; they are fatal to the true and healthy growth of the soul; and where there is no growth there is decay.
II. The preservative against the dangers of the prevalent unrest and excitement which the words of the Master suggest-Come ye and rest awhile. For there is no peril, no necessity, to which the resources of Divine grace and sympathy are not adjusted. It might seem superfluous to dwell, even for a moment, on the imperative need there is for physical rest in these days when there are many coming and going. (R. N. Young, D. D)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 30. The apostles gathered themselves together] For they went different ways before, by two and two, Mr 6:7; and now they return and meet Christ at Capernaum.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When Christ chose the twelve, it is said, Luk 3:14,15, that he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils. So that till Christs ascension, though they went out from him to preach and work miracles, yet they ordinarily were with him, receiving further instructions. When they had preached, and in his name wrought many miracles, they again returned to Christ, and gave him account both of their doctrine and of the cures they had wrought.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. And the apostles gatheredthemselves togetherprobably at Capernaum, on returning fromtheir mission (Mr 6:7-13).
and told him all things, bothwhat they had done, and what they had taughtObserve thevarious reasons He had for crossing to the other side. First, Matthew(Mt 14:13) says, that “whenJesus heard” of the murder of His faithful forerunnerfromthose attached disciples of his who had taken up his body and laid itin a sepulchre (see on Mr 6:29)”He departed by ship into a desert place apart”; eitherto avoid some apprehended consequences to Himself, arising from theBaptist’s death (Mt 10:23), ormore probably to be able to indulge in those feelings which thataffecting event had doubtless awakened, and to which the bustle ofthe multitude around Him was very unfavorable. Next, since He musthave heard the report of the Twelve with the deepest interest, andprobably with something of the emotion which He experienced on thereturn of the Seventy (see on Lu10:17-22), He sought privacy for undisturbed reflection on thisbegun preaching and progress of His kingdom. Once more, He waswearied with the multitude of “comers and goers”deprivingHim even of leisure enough to take His foodand wanted rest:“Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile,” &c. Under the combined influence of all theseconsiderations, our Lord sought this change.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the apostles gathered themselves together,…. The twelve apostles of Christ, whom he had sent out, two by two, into different parts, having gone through them, and finished the embassy, they were sent about, met together in one place, and came in a body together,
unto Jesus; their Lord and master, who had sent them, and to whom they were accountable, as all the ministers of the Gospel are:
and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught; they gave him an exact and full account of what miracles were wrought by them, what diseases they had cured, and what a number of devils they had cast out; and also what doctrines they had preached, and what success in all they had had: so every Gospel minister must give an account of his ministrations to Christ.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. |
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30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31 And he said 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. 32 And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33 And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. 35 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: 36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. 37 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? 38 He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. 39 And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 41 And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42 And they did all eat, and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44 And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
In there verses, we have,
I. The return to Christ of the apostles whom he had sent forth (v. 7), to preach, and work miracles. They had dispersed themselves into several quarters of the country for some time, but when they had made good their several appointments, by consent they gathered themselves together, to compare notes, and came to Jesus, the centre of their unity, to give him an account of what they had done pursuant to their commission: as the servant that was sent to invite to the feast, and had received answers from the guests, came, and showed his Lord all those things, so did the apostles here; they told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. Ministers are accountable both for what they do, and for what they teach; and must both watch over their own souls, and watch for the souls of others, as those that must give account, Heb. xiii. 17. Let them not either do any thing, or teach any thing, but what they are willing should be related and repeated to the Lord Jesus. It is a comfort to faithful ministers, when they can appeal to Christ concerning their doctrine and manner of life, both which perhaps have been misrepresented by men; and he gives them leave to be free with him, and to lay open their case before him, to tell him all things, what treatment they have met with, what success, and what disappointment.
II. The tender care Christ took for their repose, after the fatigue they had (v. 31); He said unto them, perceiving them to be almost spent, and out of breath, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile. It should seem that John’s disciples came to Christ with the mournful tidings of their master’s death, much about the same time that his own disciples came to him with the report of their negotiation. Note, Christ takes cognizance of the frights of some, and the toils of others, of his disciples, and provides suitable relief for both, rest for those that are tired, and refuge for those that are terrified. With what kindness and compassion doth Christ say to them, Come, and rest! Note, The most active servants of Christ cannot be always upon the stretch of business, but have bodies that require some relaxation, some breathing-time; we shall not be able to serve God without ceasing, day and night, till we come to heaven, where they never rest from praising him, Rev. iv. 8. And the Lord is for the body, considers its frame, and not only allows it time for rest, but puts it in mind of resting. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers. Return to thy rest. And those that work diligently and faithfully, may cheerfully retire to rest. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet. But observe, 1. Christ calls them to come themselves apart; for, if they had any body with them, they would have something to say, or something to do, for their good; if they must rest, they must be alone. 2. He invites them not to some pleasant country-seat, where there were fine buildings and fine gardens, but into a desert place, where the accommodations were very poor, and which was fitted by nature only, and not by art, for quietness and rest. But it was of a piece with all the other circumstances he was in; no wonder that he who had but a ship for his preaching place, had but a desert for his resting place. 3. He calls them only to rest awhile; they must not expect to rest long, only to get breath, and then to go to work again. There is no remaining rest for the people of God till they come to heaven. 4. The reason given for this, is, not so much because they had been in constant work, but because they now were in a constant hurry; so that they had not their work in any order; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. Let but proper time be set, and kept for every thing, and a great deal of work may be done with a great deal of ease; but if people be continually coming and going, and no rule or method be observed, a little work will not be done without a deal of trouble. 5. They withdrew, accordingly, by ship; not crossing the water, but making a coasting voyage to the desert of Bethsaida, v. 32. Going by water was much less toilsome than going by land would have been. They went away privately, that they might be by themselves. The most public persons cannot but wish to be private sometimes.
III. The diligence of the people to follow him. It was rude to do so, when he and his disciples were desirous, for such good reason, to retire; and yet they are not blamed for it, nor bid to go back, but bid welcome. Note, A failure in good manners will easily be excused in those who follow Christ, if it be but made up in a fulness of good affections. They followed him of their own accord, without being called upon. Here is no time set, no meeting appointed, no bell tolled; yet they thus fly like a cloud, and as the doves to their windows. They followed him out of the cities, quitted their houses and shops, their callings and affairs, to hear him preach. They followed him afoot, though he was gone by sea, and so, to try them, seemed to put a slight upon them, and to endeavour to shake them off; yet they stuck to him. They ran afoot, and made such haste, that they out-went the disciples, and came together to him with an appetite to the word of God. Nay they followed him, though it was into a desert place, despicable and inconvenient. The presence of Christ will turn a wilderness into a paradise.
IV. The entertainment Christ gave them (v. 34); When he saw much people, instead of being moved with displeasure, because they disturbed him when he desired to be private, as many a man, many a good man, would have been, he was moved with compassion toward them, and looked upon them with concern, because they were as sheep having no shepherd, they seemed to be well-inclined, and manageable as sheep, and willing to be taught, but they had no shepherd, none to lead and guide them in the right way, none to feed them with good doctrine: and therefore, in compassion to them, he not only healed their sick, as it is in Matthew, but he taught them many things, and we may be sure that they were all true and good, and fit for them to learn.
V. The provision he made for them all; all his hearers he generously made his guests, and treated them at a splendid entertainment: so it might truly be called, because a miraculous one.
1. The disciples moved that they should be sent home. When the day was not far spent, and night drew on, they said, This is a desert place, and much time is now past; send them away to buy bread, v. 35, 36. This the disciples suggested to Christ; but we do not find that the multitude themselves did. They did not say, Send us away (though they could not but be hungry), for they esteemed the words of Christ’s mouth more than their necessary food, and forgot themselves when they were hearing him; but the disciples thought it would be a kindness to them to dismiss them. Note, Willing minds will do more, and hold out longer, in that which is good, than one would expect from them.
2. Christ ordered that they should all be fed (v. 37); Give ye them to eat. Though their crowding after him and his disciples hindered them from eating (v. 31), yet he would not therefore, to be even with them, send them away fasting, but, to teach us to be kind to those who are rude to us, he ordered provision to be made for them; that bread which Christ and his disciples took with them into the desert, that they might make a quiet meal of it for themselves, he will have them to partake of. Thus was he given to hospitality. They attended on the spiritual food of his word, and then he took care that they should not want corporal food. The way of duty, as it is the way of safety, so it is the way to supply. Let God alone to fill the pools with rain from heaven, and so to make a well even in the valley of Baca, for those that are going Zion-ward, from strength to strength, Psa 84:6; Psa 84:7. Providence, not tempted, but duly trusted, never yet failed any of God’s faithful servants, but has refreshed many with seasonable and surprising relief. It has often been seen in the mount of the Lord, Jehovah-jireh, that the Lord will provide for those that wait on him.
3. The disciples objected against it as impracticable; Shall we go, and buy two hundred penny-worth of bread, and give them to eat? Thus, through the weakness of their faith, instead of waiting for directions from Christ, they perplex the cause with projects of their own. It was a question, whether they had two hundred pence with them, whether the country would of a sudden afford so much bread if they had, and whether that would suffice so great a company; but thus Moses objected (Num. xi. 22), Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them? Christ would let them see their folly in forecasting for themselves, that they might put the greater value upon his provision for them.
4. Christ effected it, to universal satisfaction. They had brought with them five loaves, for the victualling of their ship, and two fishes perhaps they caught as they came along; and that is the bill of fare. This was but a little for Christ and his disciples, and yet this they must give away, as the widow her two mites, and as the church of Macedonia’s deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality. We often find Christ entertained at other people’s tables, dining with one friend, and supping with another: but here we have him supping a great many at his own charge, which shows that, when others ministered to him of their substance, it was not because he could not supply himself otherwise (if he was hungry, he needed not tell them); but it was a piece of humiliation, that he was pleased to submit to, nor was it agreeable to the intention of miracles, that he should work them for himself. Observe,
(1.) The provision was ordinary. Here were no rarities, no varieties, though Christ, if he had pleased, could have furnished his table with them; but thus he would teach us to be content with food convenient for us, and not to be desirous of dainties. If we have for necessity, it is no matter though we have not for delicacy and curiosity. God, in love, gives meat for our hunger; but, in wrath, gives meat for our lusts, Ps. lxxviii. 18. The promise to them that fear the Lord, is, that verily they shall be fed; he doth not say, They shall be feasted. If Christ and his disciples took up with mean things, surely we may.
(2.) The guests were orderly; for they sat down by companies on the green grass (v. 39), they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties (v. 40), that the provision might the more easily and regularly be distributed among them; for God is the God of order, and not of confusion. Thus care was taken that every one should have enough, and none be over-looked, nor any have more than was fitting.
(3.) A blessing was craved upon the meat; He looked up to heaven, and blessed. Christ did not call one of his disciples to crave a blessing, but did it himself (v. 41); and by virtue of this blessing the bread strangely multiplied, and so did the fishes, for they did all eat, and were filled, though they were to the number of five thousand,Mar 6:42; Mar 6:44. This miracle was significant, and shows that Christ came into the world, to be the great feeder as well as the great healer; not only to restore, but to preserve and nourish, spiritual life; and in him there is enough for all that come to him, enough to fill the soul, to fill the treasures; none are sent empty away from Christ, but those that come to him full of themselves.
(4.) Care was taken of the fragments that remained, with which they filled twelve baskets. Though Christ had bread enough at command, he would hereby teach us, not to make waste of any of God’s good creatures; remembering how many there are that do want, and that we know not but we may some time or other want such fragments as we throw away.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus ( ). Vivid historical present.
All things whatsoever they had done and whatsoever they had taught ( ). Not past perfect in the Greek, just the aorist indicative, constative aorist that summed it all up, the story of this their first tour without Jesus. And Jesus listened to it all (Lu 9:10). He was deeply concerned in the outcome.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
RETURN AND REPORT OF APOSTLES TO JESUS FROM THEIR FIRST PREACHING TOUR, V. 30, 31
1) “And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus,” (kai sunagontai hoi apostoloi pros ton lesoun) “And the apostles assembled themselves to where Jesus was,” for a church mission report, to Him and His other disciples, perhaps inclusive of or with the seventy, Luk 10:17-20.
2) ”And told Him all things,” (kai apangeilan auto panta) “And recounted to Him all things,” Mat 14:13-14, in which they had been engaged in Galilee, inclusive of their burial of John the Baptist. Happy is the one who can tell all that he does to his Lord.
3) “Both what they had done,” (hosa epoie an) “Which they did (had done),” in their restricted mission, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Mat 10:5-6. They became 11 messengers” to Jesus and the church of all that they had done; They met Him at a previously appointed place.
4) “And what they had taught,” (kai hosa edidaksan) “And which they had taught,” Luk 9:10.
They were here, upon their return and report to Jesus, after they had been sent out, first referred to as 11 apostles,” more than just disciples,” for further study see also Mat 14:13-21; Luk 9:10-17; Joh 6:1-14.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 6:30-32
(PARALLELS: Mat. 14:13; Luk. 9:10.)
Rest after work.The disciples had just returned from the missionary journey through Galilee and Judea. Their Master had sent them out, by two and two together, six parties of them in all, to preach repentance and remission of sins.
1. You can fancy how they must have gone forth, all of them novices, and some of them young men. Imagine it, you who have not yet survived the memory of your own younger days: the new-born sense of our own importance, which accompanies our first attempt at responsible action; the childlike hopefulness to which no miracle of success seems impossible; all the bright illusions, all the golden dreams of youththat time of life when every subject possesses so fresh an interest, when every effort seems so certain to succeed, when the sensation of failure is yet a thing unknown. And such a doctrine as they had to preach, and such a Master as they had to proclaim as the coming King! What could there be before them but rapid and complete victory?
2. They came back, we may imagine, with an immense deal to tell. No child that returns to its mother from a visit more overflowing with talk than they. They told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. Here they had met an open and truthful mind; and what a pleasure it had been to instruct and encourage him! Here they had found a repentant yet desponding sinner; and how they had delighted to bind up his broken heart and to send him on his way rejoicing! And here they had encountered a captious gainsayer; and with what a clever repartee they had answered and silenced his objections! And what a ready hearing and how much success their words and efforts had obtained! They can hardly have failed to have told their Master another thing, which the seventy, who were sent out afterwards, reported, when they too returnedwhat mighty works they had done in His name. Nor would they fail to receive some such reply, half encouragement and half caution, as that which the seventy received (Luk. 10:18; Luk. 10:20). You can imagine much being said like this by that Master, still young Himself, and therefore naturally, as well as supernaturally, sympathising with the hopefulness of youth, cautious not to depress zeal, even while correcting its extravagance. Yes, He said, the Spirit of good is stronger than the spirit of evil. Yes, Satan is falling from his high place of power, and he will fall. But do not boast of spiritual power; do not be exalted by spiritual success; rejoice, rather, that there is a place for all faithful labourers, the unsuccessful as well as the successful, in the dwelling of their Lord. When bright hopes are all faded, when success has turned to failure, when high gifts have deserted their former possessors, there will still remain for you a refuge and a home. At the same time there came those words of kindly invitation, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. They were, in fact, to go with their Master and enjoy a well-earned holiday.
3. And so they embarked on the calm bosom of the Sea of Galilee, and raised their sail; and the light airs began to draw them off the land, slowly and dreamily, towards the lonelier country of the eastern side. There, let us think, are the thirteen upon the lakethe crew of twelve, each one of whom is an apostle, and the Captain, whom almost all now admit to have been the Ideal Man, whom we believe to have been God manifest in the flesh. Fresh airs are breathing on the weary brows; bright waters are rippling under the vessels floor; an open sky is bending over them, boundless as that love of God which they have been proclaiming; no shadow of approaching horrors has yet fallen on them, and all hearts are free and joyous, for not even Judas is a traitor yet.
4. It was from diligent labours for the good of souls that those disciples were invited to seek a temporary refuge. How much more needful must it be to seek such occasional retirements from the present hurrying world! God made the worldthe world of society as well as the world of nature. Even this rapid world of the end of the nineteenth century has come into existence through His providence. The Great Steersman has not abandoned the helm, but is guiding it, through all the cross-currents and changing winds, to noble objects of His own. The evil in it is not original, and (happier still) it is not inseparable. It is of His ordering that we live our lives, in close and frequent communion with those fellow-creatures of ours who form our world for their good and for our own. In the world, though not of the world, our Lord bade His disciples be. Nevertheless in the world certain evils happen to us for which occasional retirement is the cure. Let us look at one or two of these, for which we seek a remedy.
I. The world confuses our self-knowledge.The source of self-knowledge is reflexion; and little reflexion is possible amid the bustle of the world. It happens to us, as to the disciples in the gospelthere are many coming and goingemployers, customers, clients, patients, parishioners, as the case may be. The trade, or business, or profession occupies nearly all our time. Family affairs often cause anxiety. Public business, politics, religion, charity, all solicit attention, which must be given from time to time. A hundred persons have to be spoken to, a hundred subjects considered. As soon as one business is despatched another comes to be transacted. Well for us if we can keep them distinct and separate, and not mix and muddle them all. All these are outside of our real selves, so that the mind engaged in them acquires an outward leaning, and seldom collects itself inwardly at all. So reflexion perishes, and with it self-knowledge. The cure of this is retirement.
II. During our intercourse with the world our wishes and objects grow more and more worldlythat is, they become confined and bounded by this present world. We cease to feel our own immortality, we cease to have intercourse with God, and then all our aims insensibly decline. Conscience and duty become less and less our rule. We are more and more guided by self-interest or personal inclination; and by even worse things, covetousness, ambition, revenge, our motives sinking gradually, so that we cannot tell when or how they change. It is in retirement that we must resist and repair declines like these.
III.
The last evil I will name, whose proper remedy is retirement, is irritation.Many things occur to ruffle and disturb. We become vexed and displeased, perhaps with actual enemies, perhaps with indifferent people, perhaps with our best friends. This is sure to be so. For all are sinful; and our respective faults and failings jar against each. Besides, all are short-sighted and imperfectly informed, and therefore we often mistake and misunderstand. For all these inward disturbances the remedy is retirement and reflexion. Enter into your closet and shut to the door, and pray to your Father which is in secret. Lay yourselves in the arms of Jesus; throw yourselves open to the eye of the All-seeing God. There breathe forth the wish, That which I see not teach Thou me; if I have done iniquity, I would do so no more. Your Father will teach you; He will guide your feet into the way of peace.Archdeacon Rawstorne.
Lenten retirement.We are most of us living, as many almost necessarily must live, in all the busy, anxious cares of a busy, anxious age, our duties or our business laying claim to every moment of our time, till the throng and crush of earthly things prevent us from coming near to touch the Saviours robe. Then it is that our solemn Lenten fast bids us come into our chambers and shut our doors, offers to the jaded, wearied soul a little rest, a short breathing-space in which we may gather strength to wrestle on, a moments retirement from that unceasing coming and going which makes up the greatness and the littleness of our life in the world.
I. Lent is a time of retirementa special opportunity for being alone with God. As a nation we are becoming increasingly alive to the economic dangers, physical and moral, of a life without leisure. The deadening of spiritual energy, the choking of spiritual life and aspirationsthese are the parallel dangers to the religious life which knows not the blessing of retirement. You will see, then, that by the rest of religious retirement we mean something different from that rest which belongs at all times to those who are living with God. For that is an abiding thing; this is occasional. Religious retirement means a withdrawing ourselves for a special purpose and at a special time, just as he whose life is the life of one. who is praying always has yet his special time of prayer, or as He whose life was lived in the full consciousness of God yet loved to withdraw Himself to the lonely mountain-top and spend whole nights in prayer to God.
II. The time that is to be dedicated to Lenten retirement must be redeemed timetime won, not from duties, but from pleasures. Just as fasting may not trench on that which is necessary to health, but may simply limit us in what we might do without, so in redeeming some special time for prayer and self-examination we must make up our mind to give up some luxuries Those few minutes we give, perhaps, to our social chat; the comfortable half-hour that we spend over our daily paper; the time we spend in unnecessary letter-writing, or the odd times we pass we hardly know how in mere do-nothingnessall these might be spared, or limited, and dedicated to God.
III. How will this help us in running our daily race?
1. It will teach us self-knowledge. As we stand alone in the presence of God, every act stripped of the colouring which human praise and blame can give, without any of those secondary helps which the love of approbation and the desire to please so often lend us in the world, putting on one side those false standards by which we judge, the waxen wings which have borne us aloft hitherto melted in the rays of the sunthen we begin to know ourselves. And as we review our past spiritual life we see the shadows of selfish and interested motives darkening what once seemed clear and fair; our fancied love of God in that new light was but an aesthetic or poetical devotion to an ideal, our humility a skilfully concealed but now discovered pride; the very bright ones which seemed to guard our way are but as evil spirits in the form of an angel of light.
2. It is the great means of knowing God. For knowledge is born of intercourse and communion with its object. He who made man his study sought to learn his subject in the crowded market-place. And if we are to know God it must be by losing no opportunity of being with Him: with Him in those places where He has set His Name,in His Church, and His Sacrament, and His Word; above all, in prayer.
IV. This knowledge of God and of ourselves which comes from retirement with God brings with it a new power for doing our duties in the world. The presence by which you seemed in your retirement to be flooded is the presence which shall go with you into the world. It is the ark of God which shall carry victory over the enemies, the real presence which transforms your very bodies into the temples of the Living God, the light which will brighten and make clear your earthly path, the continual source of strength and nourishment, preparing you a table in the very midst of your enemies, a fountain of living water springing up within you to quench the battle-thirst. In retirement and private prayer you have learnt what it is to be alone with God, and now in the roar and din of conflict you realise what it is to have God with you.A. L. Moore.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mar. 6:30. Duties of ministers.
1. Ministers ought so to carry themselves in discharge of their calling, that they may approve their diligence and faithfulness unto Christ, who hath called them to that office.
2. Ministers ought so faithfully and conscionably to do the duties of their calling, that they may be able to give a good and comfortable account thereof unto Christ, who hath enjoined them those duties.G. Petter.
Mar. 6:31. The use of leisure.
1. Come. This is the first principle in every time of leisure, such as it is fit for a Christian to take, that we should spend it in the presence and under the eye of the Master.
2. Apart into a desert place. Leisure for the overworked had better be sought among the works of God in nature than among the works of man.
3. A while. Such seasons of rest are only temporary, and are meant to nerve and brace us for workour work, Gods work, Christs work. If it does not fit us for this, if it leaves us only discontented, selfish, and indolent, we have made a curse to ourselves out of a blessing.John Ellerton.
Seclusion with Christ.How much better would our work be done, how much more thoroughly our duty, how much healthier and more satisfactory would our worldly business be, if we could realise that that which is earthly can only bear beautiful blossom or rich fruit, when watered by the rains that fall from heaven; that the life must grow hard and barren which is cut off from its spiritual root; that Christ is ever calling us, amidst all our cares and engrossments to keep ourselves from being carried away on the flood of these, by preserving our personal fellowship with Him, and to come apart from the bustle of the world, into the silence and seclusion, where we may meet Him, and in the consciousness of His presence rest a while.R. H. Story, D.D.
Rest for a while only.This lesson is gladly learned, and too much practised. Requiescite pleaseth every man. The truth is, that the body and mind of man must after labour be refreshed with rest. But he which laboureth not is altogether as unworthy to rest as to eat. Again, such as will take rest and ease after labours must learn of Christ as well to measure their ease as their pains. He permitteth His disciples to take their rest; but He limiteth and restraineth His permission, saying, Rest a while. For by too much rest men are not made the more fit but the less willing to take pain.Archbishop Sandys.
Leisure for communion with God.I know how hard it seems to many to get room in their lives for a quiet hour. They are so compassed about with imperious demands and fretting details. Would we could have it, they say, but it is impossible. Well, it is often a great mercy when God takes such an one and lays him aside by sickness, where he must wait and be still, and is no longer oppressed with the feeling that he ought to be doing something. In that strange watch-tower of trouble his life rolls itself out before him, and he sees how brief it is, with the mystery behind it and the mystery before it, and God alone above all from everlasting to everlasting. Why should we compel the great Father thus to visit us with affliction ere we will find leisure to talk with Him and mourn for our shortcomings?D. W. Forrest.
Solitude, says one, is the mother-country of the strong; silence is their prayer.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Mar. 6:31. Labour and patience.Activity and the growth which comes by passive suffering ought always to make one single total life. Some of you will remember how in the old church at Innsbruck, among the magnificent bronze people who stand about the tomb of the Emperor Maximilian, is the great Godfrey of Boulogne, the illustrious Crusader. Upon his head he wears his helmet, and on the helmet rests a crown of thorns. The strange conjunction may mean many things. No doubt the crown of thorns is meant to represent the sacred cause, the rescue of the place of the Lords crucifixion and burial, for which the soldier fought. But is not such a union of symbols a perpetual picture? The helmet and the crown of thornsactivity and suffering, fighting and growing, the putting forth of energy and the drinking in of strengththese two were represented, not as coming in by turns, not as chasing one another into and out of the life, but as abiding together, making one temper, filling one character. It is the helmet and the crown of thorns worn together on the consecrated head that makes the noble, useful, growing life.Bishop Phillips Brooks.
No leisure.If a stranger enters a busy factory, he cannot help being struck with the bustle and activity that pervade the whole establishment. Here a powerful engine throbs and works; there are glowing furnaces and red caverns of fire. Here are wheels and spindles and revolving bands; there, hurrying to and fro with rapid steps and skilful hands, the workpeople, all hastening to accomplish their respective tasks. And there is much similarity in the condition of our ever-active modern lifewhen every day, and every hour, seems filled with business, and the seasons of relaxation are equally crowded with pleasures and excitements, so that we seem to exist under a system of high pressure. Ruskins blunt language calls it, a machine-ridden and devil-driven age. The rough sarcasm of the man who said to his fellow-labourer, who was longing for rest, Youll have time to rest when you are dead! seems to give some idea of the business and activity of life in our great cities in this age. But there are many disadvantages that follow, for he who lacks time to think lacks time to mend.Dr. Hardman.
Periods of repose.For all organic life God has provided periods of repose, during which repair goes on in order to counteract the waste caused by activity. In the springtime we see movement and stir in gardens, fields, and hedgerows, which continues till the fruits are gathered in and the leaves fall; but then winters quiet again settles down over all, and nature is at rest. Even the flowers have their time for closing their petals, and their sleeping hours come so regularly, and yet are so varied in distribution among them, that botanists can construct a floral clock out of our English wild flowers, and tell the hour of night or day by their opening or closing. The same God who created the flowers and appointed the seasons ordained the laws of Israel, and by these definite seasons of rest were set apart for the peoplethe Sabbath, the jubilee year, and the annual festivals. Indeed, in every age and in every land, the coming of night and the victory of sleep are hints of what God has ordained for man.A. Rowland.
Human claims paramount.An old heathen philosopher bade his pupils beware of saying there was no time if a human claim was made upon their services. Never say there is no time, if there is a ministry of mercy to be rendered to your race. If you want to see how active men may become under the urgency of necessity, stand on Ludgate Hill, and see how human life is being exhausted, how the energies of many are being worn out. Amid the activities of a London commercial life, and with all the incentive that the promise of wealth and greatness and aught else may give, you will find no man who can give such a record of a days work as we find in the Gospels concerning our Saviour.D. Davies.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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 Joh. 6:4 and discover why there was such a large crowd.
293.
Wasnt 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 ACCOUNTSMat. 14:13-21; Luk. 9:12-17; John 6.
OUTLINE1. The occasion for the miracle, Mar. 6:30-37. 2. The miracle, Mar. 6:38-44.
ANALYSIS
I.
THE OCCASION FOR THE MIRACLE, Mar. 6:30-37.
1.
The return and report of the apostles, Mar. 6:30.
2.
The need for retirement, Mar. 6:31.
3.
The unsuccessful attempt to seek solitude, Mar. 6:32-33.
4.
The compassion and teaching of Jesus, Mar. 6:34.
5.
The concern of the disciples and the answer of Jesus, Mar. 6:35-37.
II.
THE MIRACLE, Mar. 6:38-44.
1.
Give what you havefive barley loaves and two fish, Mar. 6:38.
2.
Sit in ranks of fifty and hundreds on the green grass, Mar. 6:39-40.
3.
Blessing and multiplying the bread and fish He distributed to the apostles, Mar. 6:41.
4.
They ate their fill, Mar. 6:42.
5.
They gathered twelve baskets of fragments, Mar. 6:43.
6.
There were 5,000 men who ate, Mar. 6:44.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Mar. 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.
Mar. 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.
Mar. 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 Mar. 6:31 is peculiar to Mark, and both parts of it are intensely characteristicthe representation of our Lords 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 Mat. 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.
Mar. 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. Mar. 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 Lukes 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.
Mar. 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 (Luk. 15:4-6; Luk. 19:10; Joh. 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 Joh. 4:32-34 : My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Mar. 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 Joh. 6:5).
The suggestion of the apostles (Mar. 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 (Joh. 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 Mat. 20:2 it appears as a suitable return for a days 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 Marks telling brevities. The loaves were thin and brittle; from Luk. 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 Shepherds 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 Luk. 24:30; see notes on Mar. 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 Marks 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. Mar. 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 Saviours 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 (Joh. 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 Mar. 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. Mat. 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?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(30) And the apostles gathered themselves together.The return of the Twelve from their first mission is mentioned by St. Luke (Luk. 9:10), but not by St. Matthew in this connection.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
62. THE TWELVE RETURN, Mar 6:30 , Mar 6:31 .
(Compare Luk 9:10.)
See note on Mat 14:13; and the introductory note to Matthew 14.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Apostles Return From Their Mission (6:30-34).
‘And the Apostles gather themselves together to Jesus, and they told him all things, whatever they had done and whatever they had taught.’
‘The Apostles.’ This is remarkably the only reference to ‘the Apostles’ in Mark. But that it carries all the full meaning of the title we cannot doubt, for by the time that he was writing the title had become a settled one (he could just as easily have called them ‘the disciples of Jesus’ in contrast with those of John – Mar 6:29, but then it could have included more than the twelve. These were the original ‘sent out ones’). Mark would not have used it without having its meaning to the churches in mind. Indeed it is an indication that he sees here their improved and permanent status after their successful ministry. They have proved that they are genuine Apostles and can now bear the title. After this he falls back on the word ‘disciples’ because he is indicating that they have much to learn before they can successfully carry into effect their new status. He tells us no more about their further ventures.
The word Apostle was given a new meaning by Jesus (compare Luk 6:13). In classical Greek it had come to signify ‘the fleet, the armada’ and had earlier been used of expeditions. It was only rarely used of representatives, although it would be used by Paul of ‘apostles (messengers/ambassadors) to the churches’. On the other hand some have related it to the Hebrew ‘shaliach’ and its Aramaic equivalent. But while that word does mean an authorised agent or representative, such a position was temporary for a particular occasion. It was never seen as permanent. There can, however, be no question that Jesus intended their appointment to be seen as permanent. Thus if He did use ‘shaliach’ or its equivalent it was with a new significance. They were not the normal type of shaliach who acted merely as a proxy. The two terms and their functions cannot be equated. ‘Apostle’ was given a unique position of its own.
‘They told Him all things.’ They reported back in detail, both as regards actions and words. They wanted His approval and they wanted His guidance. All who have ever begun preaching will be aware of their need for both. They had much to learn. Given their expectancy of an earthly kingdom (Mar 10:37; Mat 20:20-28; Luk 22:24-27; Act 1:6) it might also have concerned Him as to quite what they had been saying.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Disciples Return and Take a Break – The Feeding of Five Thousand People (6:30-44).
When the disciples returned and explained to Jesus all that had happened He sought to take them somewhere where they could rest and recuperate, and no doubt where He could give them advice and reassurance. Perhaps also He was a little concerned at some of the things which they had told Him. Their view of the Kingly Rule of God had still not been tailored in line with how Jesus saw it. Perhaps they had been rousing interest in the wrong way. That was always a danger with sending out novices. And then a crowd of interested men who were anxious to learn and see more, outwitted them by making their way round the lake. Thus would occur a further revelation of the power of Jesus as Lord of creation, the miraculous feeding of a great crowd of genuine seekers.
Again we have the contrast with Herod’s behaviour. While Herod had held a great feast and had drenched the nation in the blood of a prophet, Jesus was holding a great feast and bringing to them the bread of life as promised by the prophets (e.g. Isa 55:1-2). This celebration feast was a proclamation that the new king was here, and that the Messianic banquet was beginning (Isa 25:8). Earthly kingdoms no longer mattered. Let them forget Herod and his like. The Kingly Rule of God was here.
Analysis.
a
b And He says to them, “Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.” For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat (Mar 6:31).
c And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart (Mar 6:32).
d And the people saw them going, and many knew them, and they ran together there on foot from all the cities, and outwent them, and He came forth and saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things (Mar 6:33-34).
e And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came to 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 to them, “You give them to eat.” (Mar 6:35-37 a).
f And they say to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings’ worth of bread, and give them to eat?” (Mar 6:37 b)
g And He says to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see” (Mar 6:38 a).
f And when they knew, they say, “Five, and two fishes” (Mar 6:38 b).
e And He commanded them that all should sit down by companies on 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 broke the loaves; and He gave to the disciples to set before them, and He divided the two fishes among them all, and they all ate, and were filled
d And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes, and those who ate the loaves were five thousand men (Mar 6:44).
c And immediately He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat (Mar 6:45 a).
b And to go before Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself sends the crowd away (Mar 6:45 b).
a And after He had taken leave of them, He departed into the mountain to pray (Mar 6:46).
Note that in ‘a’ the Apostles gathered together to Jesus to tell Him what they had done, and in the parallel He took leave of them so that He could be alone to pray. In ‘b’ He calls them to go apart into a desert place in order to get away from the crowds, and in the parallel He sends them to Bethsaida while He sends the crowds away. In ‘c’ they went away in a boat, and in the parallel they entered into a boat. In ‘d’ He saw the great crowd like sheep without a shepherd, and in the parallel they were more than satisfied. In ‘e’ He commands His disciples to give the crowds food to eat, and in the parallel they do so. In ‘f’ they assess what is required to feed the crowd, and in the parallel they discover how much they actually have. Centrally in ‘g’ Jesus takes charge of the whole situation
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand ( Mat 14:13-21 , Luk 9:10-17 , Joh 6:1-15 ) Mar 6:30-44 gives us the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand men besides women and children. The story of Jesus feeding the five thousand shows that His ministry had reached a peak in the region of Galilee (chapters 1-6). He could no longer enter into the cities because of these crowds. At this point, Jesus begins to move out to nearby regions, such as Tyre and Sidon, Decapolis, Dalmanutha, Bethsaida, and Caesarea Philippi (chapters 7-9). His ministry in Galilee was only as He was passing through to regions that were more distant. Then Jesus leaves Galilee permanently and travels to the coasts of Judea (chapter 10) and finally into Jerusalem (chapter 11-13) to face Calvary (14-15).
The Training of the Twelve – One important aspect of Mark’s account of Jesus feeding the five thousand is that He is now training them to operate in the miraculous. He has just sent them out to preach the Gospel with signs following (Mar 6:7-13). Jesus now commands His disciples to give food to the five thousand, knowing that it required a miracle (Mar 6:37). He handed the food that He had blessed to the twelve disciples, who in turn handed it out to the people, thus, allowing the disciples to be a part of performing this miracle of multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
Symbolic Meaning of the Bread – Notes these insightful words of Frances J. Roberts regarding the symbolic meaning of the bread:
“It is a joy to My heart when My children rely upon Me. I delight in working things out for thee, but I delight even more in thee thyself than in anything I do to help thee. Even so, I want you to delight in Me just for Myself, rather than in anything ye do for Me. Service is the salvage of love. It is like the twelve baskets of bread that were left over. The bread partaken of was like fellowship mutually given; and the excess and overflow was a symbol of service . I do not expect thee to give to others until ye have first thyself been a partaker. I will provide you with plentiful supply to give if ye first come to receive for thine own needs. This is in no way selfishness. It is the Law of Life. Can the stalk of corn produce the ear unless first it receive its own life from the parent seed? No more can ye produce fruit in thy ministry except ye be impregnated with divine life from its source in God Himself. It was from the hands of the Christ that the multitudes received bread. From His hands ye also must receive thy nurture, the Bread of Life to sustain thy health and thy life.
“Let Him fully satisfy thy soul-hunger, and then thou shalt go forth with a full basket on thine arm. Twelve baskets there were (Mat 14:20). One for each disciple. There will always be the multitudes to be fed, but the few called to minister. This is by My own arrangement. As the Scripture says: Do not many desire to be teachers, for thereby is attached more heavy responsibility (Jas 3:1).” [107]
[107] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 153-4.
Jesus’ Touch – As Jesus touched the bread, it brought life to the loaves and they multiplied, much like the rod of Aaron’s that budded when placed into the Ark of the Covenant.
The Ministry of Helps – The principle of the ministry of helps is seen in this story. The twelve disciples were helping Jesus to distribute the bread. As the blessing and anointing was flowing through Jesus Christ to break the bread, so was this anointing imparted unto the disciples as they took of this bread and broke it and saw it multiply by their hands also. Noting that this event took place late in the day, Jesus would not have had time to break enough bread himself to feed the five thousand. The disciples were clearly breaking the bread they had received from Jesus. This story teaches us that there is an anointing imparted as we serve in the ministry of helps.
The Divine Principle of Thankfulness – Today in Israel, tour guides will suggest that there were about 40,000 people present at this time that were feed miraculously. In this story, we see a divine principle that will work in our lives. Jesus took what small provision His Heavenly Father provided and gave God thanks for it. God was then able to bless what He had and cause it to multiply. Our Father will do the same for us. We are to be thankful for what we presently have and serve Him so that He can bless and multiply our provision.
Mar 6:30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
Mar 6:30
Mar 6:30 Comments Jesus had been ministering while John was in prison (Mat 4:12, Mar 1:14). In Mar 6:30 Jesus receives the news of John’s death at the hands of King Herod.
Mar 6:31 And he said 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.
Mar 6:31
Mar 6:32 And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.
Mar 6:33 Mar 6:33
Mar 6:34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.
Mar 6:34
Mar 6:34 “because they were as sheep not having a shepherd” – Comments – During the time of Ezekiel, Israel had no righteous men to lead the children of Israel into holiness. Thus, the prophet uses similar words to describe the children of Israel during his day as being scattered because they had not shepherd. Note Eze 34:5.
Eze 34:5, “And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.”
Mar 6:34 “and he began to teach them many things” Comments – The crowd with Jesus was receptive and open to what He was teaching them. Under these circumstances, it is much easier to teach. In fact, the anointing to teach flows freely when people’s hearts are open. It has been my experience when teaching and preaching the Word of God that the words and anointing flow with a receptive audience. However, in the midst of doubt and unbelief I struggle for words to say. Thus, preaching becomes a struggle. When Mar 6:34 says that Jesus began to teach them many things, we see how He flowed under the teaching anointing. In contrast, when He confronted the Pharisees and Jewish leaders, He had much less to say. What He did say was mostly words of rebuke.
Mar 6:35 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed:
Mar 6:36 Mar 6:37 Mar 6:38 Mar 6:38
Note these insightful words from Sadhu Sundar Singh regarding the lad with the loaves and fishes.
“Sometimes when there is some great act of service to be done, I choose for My purpose those who are little esteemed in the eyes of the world, for they make no boast of their own power or wisdom, but putting their entire trust in Me, and accounting what little ability they possess as of no great value, they devote all they have and are to My work for men (1 Cor. i.26-30). For instance, when I fed in the wilderness five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, you will remember that I did not perform this miracle by the agency of My disciples, for they were full of doubt and perplexity and wished to send the multitude away hungry (John vi.9). My servant on that occasion was a little lad whom I had cured of the palsy. Filled with a desire to hear My words he determined to follow Me. His poor mother wrapped up in his clothes some barley cakes and dried fish, enough for two or three days journey, so when inquiry was made for food for the multitude this faithful little lad at once brought all that he had and laid it at the disciples’ feet. Though there were wealthy people there who had with them much better food, such as wheaten cakes, they were not prepared to give them up; so it was from the barley cakes of this boy, My namesake, that by My blessing the multitude was fed with the choicest food.” [108]
[108] Sadhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Feet, translated by Arthur Parker (London: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1922) [on-line], accessed 26 October 2008, available from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/singh/feet.html; Internet, “IV Service,” section 2, part 6.
Mar 6:39 And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.
Mar 6:40 Mar 6:41 Mar 6:41
[109] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, in The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 378.
Mar 6:42 And they did all eat, and were filled.
Mar 6:42
Mar 6:43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.
Mar 6:43
These twelve baskets of bread served as physical evidence of the miracle of feeding five thousand. The small boy had given so little, yet the returns were enormous. It is the same way in our lives when we give to Jesus. Jesus may have offered these twelve baskets of bread to the little boy who first gave his food to Jesus.
Mar 6:44 And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
The return of the apostles:
v. 30. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.
v. 31. And He said 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.
v. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.
While the apostles made their first independent preaching-trip, the Lord Himself had not been idle. He had continued His journey in the company of other disciples, and He always had an audience wherever He came. But at the time when Herod had heard of Jesus and had been reminded of that unpleasant incident in his life, the apostles returned to their Master. As they had gone out two by two, so they now came together from various directions once more. They reported on all their work, especially also upon their preaching. Note: They were weary from the arduous labor which the task of preaching and the accompanying pastoral work involves, and the fact that Herod had deigned to take notice, while not a reason for flight, yet may be a secondary consideration to the Lord, not so much on His own account as on account of His disciples. And so He suggested a rest, a vacation, in some place away from the haunts of men, for many people were going to and fro; as one crowd left, another arrived; and the Lord and His disciples did not even have leisure for eating. And so they managed to get away by themselves in a ship, all alone. Here is an instance of the loving care of the Lord for His servants. His solicitude is for their bodies also, lest the strain of continuous work make them unfit for the greatest work of all, that of preaching the Gospel-a hint to be noted in its real significance by congregations and pastors alike.
Mar 6:30-44 . See on Mat 14:13-21 . Comp. Luk 9:10-17 . The latter, but not Matthew, follows Mark also in connecting it with what goes before; Matthew in dealing with it abridges very much, still more than Luke. On the connection of the narrative in Matthew, which altogether deviates from Mark, see on Mat 14:13 . Mark has filled up the gap, which presented itself in the continuity of the history by the absence of the disciples who were sent forth, with the episode of the death of John, and now makes the disciples return, for whom, after the performance and report of their work, Jesus has contemplated some rest in privacy, but is hampered as to this by the thronging crowd.
] only used here in Mark, but “apta huic loco appellatio,” Bengel.
] returning from their mission, Mar 6:7 .
] What ? is told by the following : as well as also .
Mar 6:31 . ] vos ipsi (Stallb. ad Plat. Phaed. p. 63 C; Khner, 630, A 3), ye for yourselves , ye for your own persons, without the attendance of the people. Comp. on Rom 7:25 . See the following . . .
] Comp. Mar 2:2 , Mar 3:20 .
Mar 6:33 . And many saw them depart and perceived it , namely, what was the object in this , whither the wished to go (Mar 6:31-32 ), so that thereby the intention of remaining alone was thwarted. is the subject of both verbs.
] emphatically prefixed . They came partly round the lake, partly from its sides, by land .
] namely, to the , whither Jesus with the disciples directed His course.
] they anticipated them . Comp. Luk 22:47 . Not so used among the Greeks, with whom, nevertheless, (Valck. ad Eur. Phoen. 982), and even (Ael. N. A. vii. 26; Oppian. Hal. iv. 431) is analogously used.
Mar 6:34 . ] not as in Mat 14:14 , but from the ship , as is required by the previous . In Mar 6:32 there was not as yet reported the arrival at the retired place, but the direction of the course thither.
] His sympathy outweighed the intention, under which He had repaired with the disciples to this place, and He began to teach.
Mar 6:35 ff. . .] and when much of the day-time had already passed (comp. subsequently: ), that is, when the day-time was already far advanced, , Dem. 541 pen. , according to very frequent usage, applied to time . Comp. Dion. Hal. ii. 54: ; Polyb. v. 8. 3; Joseph. Antt. viii. 4. 3.
] more exactly in Joh 6:7 .
-g0- . -g0- .] Comp. Joh 6:7 , by whom this trait of the history, passed over by Matthew and Luke, not a mere addition of Mark (Bleek, Hilgenfeld), is confirmed. That the contents of the treasure-chest consisted exactly of two hundred denarii (Grotius and others) is not clear from the text. The disciples, on an approximate hasty estimate, certainly much too small (amounting to about 7, 13s., and consequently not quite one-third of a penny per man), specify a sum as that which would be required . It is otherwise at Joh 6:7 . Moreover, the answer of the disciples bears the stamp of a certain irritated surprise at the suggestion . . ., a giving, however, which was afterwards to be realized, Mar 6:41 .
With the reading , Mar 6:37 (see the critical remarks), the note of interrogation is to be placed, with Lachmann, after , so that is then the consecutive; and so shall we , etc. The reading on to together without interrogation (Ewald, Tischendorf), is less in keeping with the whole very vivid colouring, which in Mar 6:37-40 exhibits a very circumstantial graphic representation, but not a paraphrase (Weiss).
Mar 6:39 f. ] Accusatives: after the fashion of a meal , so that the whole were distributed into companies for the meal. The distributive designation, as also ( areolatim , so that they were arranged like beds in the garden), is a Hebraism, as at Mar 6:7 . The individual divisions consisted partly of a hundred, partly of fifty (not 150, Heupel, Wetstein).
] Mark depicts ; it was spring (Joh 6:4 ).
] refers to the prayer at a meal. It is otherwise in Luke. See on Mat 14:19 .
Mar 6:41 . . .] also the two fishes.
] namely, by means of the apostles , as with the loaves.
Mar 6:43 . And they took up of fragments twelve full baskets , in which, however, is emphatically prefixed . Yet probably Mark wrote (so Tischendorf), which, indeed, is only attested fully by B, and incompletely by L, , min. (which read ), as well as by , which has , , but was very easily subjected to gloss and alteration from the five parallel passages. This reading is to be explained: and they took up as fragments fillings of twelve baskets, i.e. they took up in fragments twelve baskets full
. .] also of the fishes, that it might not be thought that the had been merely fragments of bread. Fritzsche without probability goes beyond the twelve baskets, and imports the idea: “and further in addition some remnants of the fishes,” so that is supplied (so also Grotius and Bleek).
Why Mar 6:44 should have been copied, not from Mark, but from Mat 14:21 (Holtzmann), it is no easy to see.
] These had been the principal food (comp. Mar 6:52 ); to their number corresponded also that of those who were satisfied.
3. Withdrawal of Jesus into the Wilderness on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and the miraculous Feeding of the Five Thousand. Mar 6:30-44
30And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both10 what they had done, and what they had taught. 31And he said 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. 32And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33And the people11 saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran a foot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. 35And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed; 36Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves12 bread: for they have nothing to eat. 37He 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, 38and give them to eat? He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and13 see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. 39And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 41And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42And they did all eat, and were filled. 43And they took up twelve baskets14 full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
See on the parallel passages of Matthew, Luke, and John.The time is designated most clearly by John. Jesus has returned from the Feast of Purim (in the second year of His ministry) to Galilee; and the journey begins probably from the district of Tiberias. The time is evidently just before the Passover; as it is manifest, from Marks mention of the green grass, that the spring was just beginning. According to Luke, it was, also, the time when the Apostles once more assembled around their Master, and when Herod began to take an interest in Him and in His doings. According to Matthew, finally, this miracle coincided with the time immediately after the execution of the Baptist, and the report brought concerning it. The peculiarities of Mark in this section are as follows: The disciples tell the Lord also what they had taught. They were to take a little rest in the desert place. As elsewhere there was no time for either the Lord or His disciples to eat, on account of the press of the people, so it was here. The fact also is mentioned, that the Lords departure was made known to many, and that the crowds hastened to anticipate Him. We must add the allusion to these as sheep without a shepherd, and the vivid description of the peoples dejected state.
Mar 6:34. When He came out.The crowds of people might seem to have rendered abortive the design of Jesus to withdraw for a season with His disciples; for, according to the most obvious connection, we should suppose that must mean: When He came forth from the ship. But as the Evangelist has mentioned the fixed purpose of Jesus to go into a desert place apart, we must retain the connection with this, and assume that the coming out refers to His leaving the wilderness again.And He began to teach them many things.This likewise confirms the previous explanation. Since a large portion of the day was gone, the time must have been drawing too near to the decline of day; and hence His discourse was interrupted by the suggestion of the disciples.
Mar 6:37. Two hundred pennyworth.See for the details in John,through whom this part of the scene, not recorded by Matthew and Luke, obtains the confirmation of authenticity. Grotius: The amount that happened to be in the chest was two hundred denarii. Meyer: This does not follow; it was the estimate made by the disciples of what the provision would cost. But they would doubtless make their estimate according to the condition of their treasury. The denarius, , was a Roman silver coin; it was used also at a later period among the Jews; somewhat lighter than the Attic drachma, but current at about the same value, being the customary hire of a days labor, about sevenpence halfpenny. See particulars in Winer.
Mar 6:39. By companies, .A Hebraism, like the subsequent . Starke: So that there were on each side 50, and 100 always together. Fifty such tables full made them just 5,000. Or, there were 50 seats in breadth, and 100 in length. But, why not simply companies of 100 and of 50, through which they might freely pass? A living town in the wilderness. Gerlach: Two longer rows of 100, a shorter one of 50 persons. The fourth side remained, after the manner of the ancients tables, empty and open.
Mar 6:43. And of the fishes.Reckoned among the relics which filled the twelve baskets. According to the account, these relics are distinguished from the , or broken pieces of bread.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
See on the parallel passages in Matthew, Luke, and John.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See on the parallel passage of Matthew.The return of the Apostles, and the first resting-place provided for them by their Lord.Come into a desert place apart, and rest a while: Christs call to His overwrought, excited, and restless laborers.This word of Christ perverted by many of His servants into a toleration of idleness: He says, a while!Christs rest, and His disciples solemn prayer, in solitude.The refreshments of the world, and the refreshments of Christs disciples.Into solitude, but with Christ.How the Lord sacrificed for men both His solitude and His refreshment.How He turned the seeming failure of His plan (touching solitude) into a higher realization of the same object.How we should fashion the web of our lifeour plans and the conjunctures of circumstancesinto higher unity of godly action and suffering.The miraculous festival which our Lord prepared for His disciples after their labors and journeys in the world.How He continually comes forth in His mercy: 1. From the bosom of heaven; 2. from the darkness of Nazareth; 3. from the solemn season of prayer in the wilderness; 4. from the glory of the new life in the resurrection; 5. from the throne of heaven.The school of Christ a free school in the highest sense.With Christ, all that we have we have freely.Christ was already King when they wanted to make Him king; but King: 1. In the kingdom of the Spirit; 2. in the kingdom of love; 3. and in the kingdom of divine blessing.His earthly exaltation would have been the translation of His throne from the realm of the infinite into the realm of the finite and transitory.Christ was constrained to repel the people with as much earnestness as that with which the mercy of His Shepherd-heart sought them.Christ the breaker of bread, because He Himself is the Bread of life.The riches of His kingdom.Sufficiency with Christ is lavish abundance.
Starke:Osiander:We should in such manner wait on our ministering as preachers of the Gospel, that we may be able to give in our account to the supreme Shepherd with joy.It is good to rest after labor.When we can separate ourselves from the tumult of the world, and send our spirits upwards to God, rest both of body and of soul is the result.Hedinger:He who is in earnest to go to Christ, will let no trouble, labor, or expense hinder him.Osiander:Although we may have a certain amount of rest in this world, yet that is soon disturbed again by business. Here all is unrest; yonder is perfect repose.The Church of God has indeed many shepherds; but since many of them are shamefully given to negligence, and many are busy with vain labor, it is reasonable to lament that the poor sheep have, after all, but few true shepherds.Quesnel:The love of devout souls is indeed wise, but Gods love is better in this than all.Poor people cannot do better than hang upon God, &c.Hedinger:Piety and faith never die of hunger.What in mens eyes is impossible, may become possible through Gods power.As to the fragments, order and economy are in all things well-pleasing to God.God is a God of order.Take your food with prayer and thanksgiving, 1Ti 4:4.Schleiermacher:Thus they came back with minds excited, and perhaps disturbed, by all these various opinions concerning Christ; and therefore it was very important that they should become composed, and readjust all their views in their original relation to the truth.We should never find a contradiction between that which is our duty and the internal bias of our hearts.Christ found between this will (to be alone with His disciples) and the great pressure of the people no contradiction: He knew how to reconcile one with the other, and by the other.There is nothing more essential in the kingdom of God than what is incumbent upon us as duty, and what is the object of our wishes, should coalesce and coincide, the one upholding and preserving the other.There is one entirely and purely simple wisdom.To this nothing is so absolutely essential as simplicity of spirit.The disciples were to be convinced (by the miraculous feeding), that if they applied themselves to the duties and obligations of the spiritual kingdom, their outward life would take no harm; whilst, on the other hand, everything would be interrupted if the Master should always act as they might think best.
Footnotes:
[10]Mar 6:30.The () of the Recepta has the weight of the Codd. against it.
[11]Mar 6:33.The is an addition (from Matthew), and is wanting in A., B., D., Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann. Lachmann and Tischendorf have . The many variations are essentially the same in meaning.
[12]Mar 6:36. , Tischendorf, after B., L., ., &c.
[13]Mar 6:38. before wanting in B., D., L., Versions, Tischendorf.
[14]Mar 6:43.Tischendorf and Meyer, following B. and cursive MSS., read .
(30) And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. (31) And he said 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. (32) And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. (33) And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. (34) And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward, them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. (35) And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came, unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: (36) Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. (37) 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? (38) He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. (39) And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. (40) And they sat down in ranks by hundreds, and by fifties. (41) And when he had taken the five loaves, and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. (42) And they did all eat, and were filled. (43) And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes: (44) And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men. (45) And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. (46) And when he had sent them away, he de parted into a mountain to pray.
I shall only hint at one or two improvements, as they arise from this passage before us, having already noticed some of the principal things which are found in our LORD’s miracle of feeding the multitude in the wilderness, in the similar relation of it. Mat 14:1 , etc. And first, it will be profitable to observe, what is said here of the Apostles, whom JESUS had sent forth to preach, returning with an account of their ministry: not by way of informing CHRIST what he already knew, but by way of praising him for the success of their labors. So should all ministers of JESUS. And what can be more engaging than the view of a faithful laborer in the Gospel, who hath gone forth in the LORD’s strength in the day, returning to the LORD’s praise in the night, and laying both himself and labors before the Lot for a blessing?
And let not the Reader overlook, as another interesting improvement, which ariseth from what is here said of CHRIST, compassion in beholding the fainting multitude. There is somewhat particularly striking in the manner in which it is related; JESUS was moved with compassion toward them. Reader! I know not what your feelings are, but I must confess that I receive a more than ordinary pleasure in such views of JESUS, as represent him touched with our feelings; for they certainly mean the feelings of JESUS in our nature, joined with the GODHEAD. Paul calls it the bowels of JESUS CHRIST. Phi 1:8 . Mercies and Compassions; not only GOD-mercies, but mercies in such a way, as are the mercies of the man also; and without the SON of GOD, having taken human nature into union with the GODHEAD, as GOD alone, he could not have felt. Reader! think what a view doth this apprehension of Jesus, in his two-fold nature, open to our everlasting joy, in a thousand instances which arise?
If I venture to hint at a third improvement from this passage, (many more might, but for swelling the pages,) it shall be only to observe, that if from a few loaves and fishes the LORD CHRIST made such a supply for so great a multitude, and left such an overplus, think, what infinite resources are with our GOD, for every occasion, to both the spiritual, and temporal necessities of his chosen? Very blessed is the Apostle’s conclusion on this point, when he saith But my GOD shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory by CHRIST JESUS. Phi 4:19 . See Mat 14:22-23 .
I
SEASON OF RETIREMENT
PART I
Harmony, pages 76-89 and Mat 14:13-16:12 ; Mar 6:30-8:26 ; Luk 9:10-17 ; Joh 6:1-7:1 .
We now take up Part V of the Harmony, the general theme of which is “Season of Retirement into Districts Around Galilee.” The time is six months, i.e., from just before the Passover (Joh 6:4 ) to the Feast of Tabernacles. There are four of these retirements, found in sections 57, 61, 62, 63-67, respectively. The occasion of the first was twofold, (1) the hearing of the death of John the Baptist, and (2) the return of the twelve apostles for rest. The place of this retirement was Bethsaida Julias, which is referred to by Luke, as over against the Bethsaida mentioned by Mark, which was near Capernaum. The occasion of the second retirement was also twofold, (1) the fanaticism of the disciples in trying to make him king (Joh 6:15 ), and (2) the hostility of the Jewish rulers (Mat 15:1 ). The place of the second retirement was Phoenicia, about Tyre and Sidon. The occasion of the third retirement was the suspicion of Herod Antipas, who was a very wicked man and had much fear respecting Jesus and his great works. The place of this retirement was Decapolis. The occasion of the fourth retirement was continued Jewish hostilities, and the place was Caesarea Philippi, in the extreme northern part of Palestine on the east side of the Jordan. In every case he avoided Herod’s jurisdiction.
The first outstanding event of these retirements is the feeding of the five thousand, the account of which is prefaced by the report of the twelve apostles, who had just returned from their first missionary tour. This is a glowing account of their work and their teaching. The latter item of this report is unusual in a missionary report. Matthew says that Jesus withdrew to a desert place apart when he heard of the death of John the Baptist. In this desert place the multitudes thronged from the cities, and this excited the tender compassion of Jesus because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Mark says that he taught them many things. His work here continued until the day was far spent, upon which the disciples besought him to send the multitudes away to buy food. Here begins the beautiful story of “Feeding the Five Thousand,” which is told by all four of the evangelists and does not need to be repeated in this expression, but there are certain facts and lessons here that need to be emphasized. First, there is the test of his disciples as to what they were willing to undertake. Second, this furnished the occasion for the great discourse of Joh 6 on the Bread of Life. Third, it was the occasion of sloughing off unworthy disciples. Fourth, it supplied the physical wants of the people. Fifth, there is here a most excellent lesson on order in doing things. Sixth, Christ is presented here as the great wonder-worker in supplying the needs of his people.
Following this miracle is the incident of Jesus walking on the sea. After feeding the five thousand Jesus retired to the mountain to pray and sent the disciples back across the sea in a boat. A storm arose and they were distressed, but on the troubled sea they saw Jesus walking and they were afraid. Out from the storm of their distress came the voice of Jesus: “It is I; be not afraid.” What a lesson for us! Jesus walks on the troubled sea. But Peter, impulsive Peter, must put the matter to a test and he receives the command to try his strength in walking on the sea, but the wind and the waves disturb his faith and he sinks, only to be rescued by the hand divine. Our Lord rebukes his “little faith,” as he does the “little faith” of others in two other instances in this division of the Harmony, (viz., on pp. 88, 95).
This incident made a profound impression on the disciples. Matthew says, “They that were in the boat worshiped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” Mark says, “They were sore amazed in themselves; for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” John says, “They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat.” There seems, at first sight, to be some discrepancy here, but these evangelists are speaking from different standpoints. Matthew seems to look at it from the standpoint of the effect in strengthening their faith in his divinity; John, from the standpoint of their scare when they first saw him, and Mark, from the standpoint of the preceding incident of “Feeding the Five Thousand.” Broadus says, “Mark (Mar 6:52 ) censures their astonishment at this miracle, for which the miracle of the loaves would have prepared them if their minds had not been stupid and dull. This language of Mark does not necessarily forbid the supposition that they were now convinced Jesus was divine; but it best falls in with the idea that they were at a lower standpoint.” They straightway landed at Gennesaret, according to Matthew and John, where the people came in great numbers to touch his garment that they might be healed. Mark’s description of this healing work of our Lord is most vivid, closing with the words, “as many as touched him were made whole.”
All this prepared the way for the great discourse of our Lord on the Bread of Life in Joh 6 (Harmony, pp. 81-82). This is a marvelously strong discourse on the spirituality of his kingdom. The introduction (Joh 6:22-25 ) explains the connection of this discourse with the miracle of the loaves and how the multitudes found Jesus after that event in Capernaum. In Joh 6:26-40 we have the first dialogue between them and Jesus in which Jesus reveals their purposes and exhorts them to seek the Bread of Life. Then they ask, “How?” and he explains that it is by accepting him whom the Father sent. Then they demand a sign, referring to the sign of the manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, upon which Jesus showed them the typical and spiritual import of the manna, explaining that it referred to him. In Joh 6:41-51 we have the second dialogue arising from their murmuring at his teaching, that he came down from heaven. Here he announced the great doctrine of God’s drawing in order to salvation, his relation to the Father and the nature of the salvation he brought as eternal, over against the perishable manna which their fathers ate in the wilderness. In Joh 6:52-59 we have the third dialogue arising from their strife among themselves about his teaching, in which Jesus shows them their utter hopelessness apart from him and his sacrifice. In Joh 6:60-65 we have the fourth dialogue, which was between Jesus and his disciples, growing out of their murmuring at his hard doctrine. Here he explains that the words which he had spoken were spiritual and life-giving, and then revealed the fact that one among them was an unbeliever. This he knew, says John, from the beginning. In Joh 6:66-71 we have the final effect of his discourse upon them, driving many of his disciples back, but confirming his immediate disciples in his divine mission as voiced by this first great confession of Peter: “We believe and know that thou art the Holy One of God.” But Jesus let them know that one of them was a devil. Note that this revelation of the betrayer was nearly a year before the revelation of Judas at the Passover supper (Joh 13 ), and shows that Jesus knew all the time that Judas would betray him. Note also that this discourse is progressive. Each dialogue brings a new revelation and the effect of this progress upon his audience is marked, finally driving them away from our Lord to walk with him no more, while the severity of the test brought forth from his disciples their strongest expression of faith in his divinity up to this time.
In section 60 (Mat 15:1-20 ; Mar 7:1-23 ; Joh 7:1 ) we have the account of another issue between Christ and the Pharisees at Capernaum. They sent an embassy to him from Jerusalem and asked why his disciples did not keep the tradition of the elders with regard to the washing of their hands, the full explanation of which is given by Mark and needs only a careful reading to be understood. To this Jesus responded with a charge of hypocrisy and quotes a prophecy of Isaiah which he applies to them. This prophecy has in it a double charge, (1) of emptiness, of heartlessness, in their service and (2) that they taught the doctrines and precepts of men. This applied to all their traditions, what a comment on the whole of the Jewish Talmud! Then he goes further and charges them with transgressing the commandment of God because of their tradition in respect to honoring parents. If they should say that their property was “Corban,” i.e., given to God, that exempted them, according to the Jewish tradition, which made void the word of God. Then he explained the fallacy of their tradition by showing that it was not what goes into a man that defiles him, but that defilement was an issue of the heart. But this offended the Pharisees, to which he replied to his disciples with the parable of the blind guides, which the disciples did not understand, as it applied to the matter under consideration. This called for a more elaborate explanation, that the heart and stomach of a man were vastly different and that sin issuing from the heart was the only true defilement of the man. Mark gives thirteen items in his list of sins coming out of the heart, and Matthew seven, but these are but illustrations of the principle that all sin issues from the heart.
Immediately following this issue with the authorities at Jerusalem, Jesus retired to the region of Tyre and Sidon, in the territory of Phoenicia, which is outside of the land of Israel. This retirement, as already explained, was caused by the fanaticism of his disciples in trying to make him king, and the hostility of the Jewish rulers. Phoenicia (see map) was located northwest of Palestine and contained two cities of importance Tyre and Sidon. It was in this territory and while on this retirement that Jesus healed the Syrophoenician, or Canaanitish woman’s daughter. The term “Canaanitish,” as used by Matthew, refers back to the time when the inhabitants of this section were called Canaanites. It is probable that the Jews continued to apply this name to the inhabitants of Phoenicia, though the after inhabitants may have been of later origin. To Matthew’s Jewish readers this word would show that she was a Gentile. (Broadus’ Commentary). But Mark says that she was a Greek, meaning a Gentile, and a Syrophoenician, meaning an inhabitant of the united countries of Syria and Phoenicia, a term used to distinguish this country from Libyphoenicia, or the Carthaginians. To Mark’s Gentile readers this name also would mean a Gentile. This country of Syria extended from the northern part of Palestine all the way up the Mediterranean coast to the headwaters of the Euphrates, following that river east to the great Syrian Desert, and thence south to the headwaters of the Jordan, including Antioch and Damascus, two cities well known to Bible history. This country has a vital connection with the Greeks. It was conquered by Alexander the Great, allotted to the Seleucids after his death, who built Antioch and ruled this country till it was taken by the Romans. This was in the fourth, third, and second centuries before Christ.
It was in this country Jesus sought retirement and rest for himself and disciples, but this rest was broken by the coming of the Syrophoenician woman to Jesus in behalf of her daughter. Jesus could not be hid because of his fame and his approachableness by those who were in distress. We find that, in every effort which he made at retirement, the people found him. So, this Canaanitish, Greek, Syrophoenician woman found him when he came into those parts. The facts of this case are as follows: This Syrophoenician woman had a little daughter who was grievsouly demonized. She heard of the presence of Jesus in those parts, came and besought him to cast forth the demon out of her. He made no answer. Then the disciples intervened and asked him to send her away, but he answered that he was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The woman personally renews her petition and begs for help, but Jesus tells her that it is not meet to give the children’s bread to the dogs. She answered that she would be satisfied with the crumbs, and this brought forth from the Saviour the highest commendation of her faith.
Now let us look at this picture again and see if we can find in it the lessons intended for us. First, let us look for the proofs of this woman’s faith. There are four of these: (1) Her address in which she calls him the Son of David; (2) she worshiped him; (3) she recognized Jewish priority; (4) her humility and importunity.
This scene was, perhaps, on the road and not in the house, which helps us to understand better some of the points in the story. The seeming indifference of Jesus was only to test and develop her faith. The intervention of the disciples was not to ask that she be dismissed without help, but, rather, to give her the blessing and let her go. Evidently the woman did not hear Christ’s reply to the disciples. Being in advance of the woman on the road, this conversation was not understood by her, which explains the next statement that “she came and worshiped him.” The statement of Jesus to the disciples that he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel meant that he was unwilling to carry on a general ministry in Phoenicia, because his mission was to the Jews. The “crumb” idea here introduced by the woman and acted upon by Christ does not conflict with this idea of avoiding a general ministry in Phoenicia. This referred to the smaller blessing to a Gentile dog which would not take any of the children’s bread. She seems here to argue that Jesus is now away from the Jews and not feeding them. So a blessing in this isolated case would not interfere with the blessings for the Jews. The dogs here referred to were little dogs. The word in the Greek is diminutive and means the little house dogs allowed to run around in the house and under their master’s table. The woman was willing not only to be called a dog, but to be called a little dog and to have a little dog’s share of food. This incident is also an illustration of the scriptural teaching that we should pray for the salvation of others who are not even interested.
After the incident of the Syrophoenician woman Jesus hastened to return to the land of Israel. Going from the borders of Tyre and Sidon he passed through Sidon, thence across to the east side of the Jordan and down on the east side of the Sea of Galilee through the borders of Decapolis. This was intentional, to avoid the territory of Herod, who was suspicious of Jesus. As soon as he arrived they brought him a deaf and dumb man whom he healed, and charged not to tell it, but he published it the more, which resulted in their bringing the multitudes of the unfortunate to him for a blessing. He healed all of these and then fed four thousand, the circumstances and particulars of which are similar to the feeding of the five thousand.
Then, sending away the multitudes, he crossed over the Sea of Galilee to the borders of Magadan, where he was met again by the Pharisees demanding a sign, but sighing deeply in his spirit he rebuked them and left them, never to return to this part again to teach. This text illustrates the grieving of the Holy Spirit. On leaving here he went across the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida, where he tarried a short time on his way to Caesarea Philippi. When they arrived at Bethsaida the disciples were reminded by a little parable of Jesus that they had forgotten to take bread with them. This parable referred to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which was their doctrine, but the disciples did not understand it and thought that he referred to their forgetting the bread. Then he issued a sharp rebuke to his disciples as follows: (1) for hardness of heart; (2) for dimness of perception; (3) for a torpid memory; (4) for lack of faith. Then they understood that he referred to the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Does teaching, or doctrine, leaven? It seems to have leavened them. Does it make any difference what we believe? Certainly there is a moral quality of belief.
At Bethsaida was brought to him a blind man whom he carried out of the village. He healed him by the use of means; at least apparently, and gradually, thus illustrating the gradual perception of conversion. Then he sent him away and would not even permit him to go into the village. This case is very similar to the case of the deaf and dumb whom he healed in the borders of Decapolis. In each case he took the person out and healed him privately. In each case he also used means, apparently. Why this method in these two cases particularly? On the point of the “why” here we cannot be dogmatic. Perhaps it was to prevent excitement as far as possible by making it appear that he used means; that he was healing more in the natural way and thus avoid the excitement that usually followed his regular method.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the theme of Part V of the Harmony?
2. What was the time and what the time limits of this division?
3. How many retirements in this period and where are they found in the Harmony?
4. What was the occasion and place of each?
5. What was the first outstanding event of this period of retirements and how is it prefaced?
6. What, in order, are the events which led up to the feeding of the five thousand?
7. Tell the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
8. What are the lessons of this incident?
9. Give the story of Jesus walking on the sea and its lessons.
10. How do you harmonize Matthew, Mark, and John on this incident?
11. Where did they land and what incidents there?
12. What was the occasion and nature of the great discourse in Joh 6 ?
13. Give an analysis of this discourse, showing its introduction, its dialogues, the progress of the thought in these parts of the discourse, the progress of its effect on the enemy and its effect on the disciples of Jesus.
14. What issue raised between Christ and the Pharisees at Capernaum and how did Christ meet it?
13. Give an account of the progress of this issue and show the final outcome of it.
16. Bid Jesus ever leave the land of Israel? If so, why?
17. In what country were Tyre and Sidon?
18. State the geographical position of Phoenicia.
19. Explain the terms “Ganaanitiah,” “Greek,” and “Syrophoenician” as applied to the woman who approached Christ in these parts.
20. What is the extent of Syria?
21. What, briefly, was Syria’s connection with the Greeks, and how long since to this incident?
22. Why should Jesus desire to remain incognito here?
23. How was the rest broken?
24. Why could not Jesus be hid?
25. What are the facts of this case in their order?
26. What was the proofs of this woman’s faith?
27. Was this scene in the house or out doors?
28. Why did Jesus so act in this case?
29. Did his disciples ask that she be dismissed without help?
30. Why should Jesus avoid a general ministry in Phoenicia?
31. Explain how “crumbs” did not conflict with this idea.
32. What kind of dogs here referred to and what the import?
33. What is the lesson here on praying for others not interested?
34. Trace on the map the journey of Jesus from Tyre to the neighborhood of the Sea of Galilee. Why this course?
35. What were the events of his stay in this section?
36. Where did he go from there and what were the events at the next place?
37. Where then did he go, and what important lesson did he there teach his disciples and how?
38. What are the items of his rebuke here and what the importance of doctrine as here indicated?
39. Give the incident of the healing of the blind man here and its lessons.
30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
Ver. 30. And the apostles gathered themselves to Jesus ] As the chickens, frightened by the kite, hover and cover under the hen’s wing, that had before lain dusting themselves in the sunshine. So the disciples, terrified perhaps with the tidings of John’s death, run to Christ for shelter, , under the shadow of the Almighty,Psa 91:1Psa 91:1 . Fides est quae te pullastrum, Christum gallinam facit, ut sub pennis eius speres; nam salus in pennis eius, saith Luther. It is faith that maketh thee the chicken, Christ the hen, that thou mayest hope for help under his wings.
30 44. ] FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. Mat 14:13-21 .Luk 9:10-17Luk 9:10-17 . Joh 6:1-13 . This is one of the very few points of comparison between the four Gospels during the ministry of our Lord. And here again I believe Mark’s report to be an original one, and of the very highest authority. Professor Bleek (Beitrge zur Evangelienkritik, p. 200) believes that Mark has used the Gospel of John , on account of the 200 denarii in our Mar 6:37 and Joh 6:7 ; and that he generally compiles his narrative from Matt. and Luke (ibid. p. 72 75), which has been elsewhere shewed to be utterly untenable. I believe Mark’s to be an original full account ; Matt.’s a compendium of this same account , but drawn up independently of Mark’s: Luke’s a compendium of another account : John’s an independent narrative of his own as an eye-witness .
30. ] Mentioned by Luke, not by Matt.
Mar 6:30-33 . Return of the Twelve (Mat 14:13 , Luk 9:10-11 ).
Mar 6:30 transfers us from the past date of the horrible deed just related to the time when the fame of Jesus and His disciples recalled the deed of guilt to Herod’s mind. , the apostles (here only, and not in the technical sense of after days, but = the men sent out on the Galilean mission, the missioners ) gather to Jesus. Where? after how long? and what has Jesus been doing the while? No answer is possible. These are gaps in the evangelic history. .: suggests that they had great things to tell, though Mar 6:12-13 create very moderate expectations. The repetition of before = how much they had taught (“quanta docuerant,” Fritzsche), may surprise. The teaching element could not be extensive in the range of topics. Yet, if it took the form of personal narrative concerning Jesus , it might be copious enough, and really the principal feature of the mission. Vide notes on Mt., chap. 10
Mark
THE WORLD’S BREAD
Mar 6:30 – Mar 6:44 This is the only miracle recorded by all four Evangelists. Matthew brings it into immediate connection with John’s martyrdom, while Mark links it with the Apostles’ return from their first mission. His account is, as usual, full of graphic touches, while John shows more intimate knowledge of the parts played by the Apostles, and sets the whole incident in a clearer light.
I. Mark brings out the preceding events, and especially the seeking for solitude, which was baulked by popular enthusiasm.
After any great effort, the body cries for repose, but still more does the soul’s health demand quiet after exciting and successful work for Christ. Without much solitary communion with Jesus, effort for Him tends to become mechanical, and to lose the elevation of motive and the suppression of self which give it all its power. It is not wasted time which the busiest worker, confronted with the most imperative calls for service, gives to still fellowship in secret with God. There can never be too much activity in Christian work, but there is often disproportioned activity, which is too much for the amount of time given to meditation and communion. That is one reason why there is so much sowing and so little reaping in Christian work to-day.
But, on the other hand, we have sometimes to do as Jesus was driven to do in this incident; namely, to forgo cheerfully, after brief repose, the blessed and strengthening hour of quiet. The motives of the crowds that hurried round the head of the lake while the boat was pulled across, and so got to the other side before it, were not very pure. Curiosity drove them as much as any nobler impulse. But we must not be too particular about the reasons that induce men to resort to Jesus, and if we can give them more than they sought, so much the better. Let us be thankful if, for any reason, we can get them to listen.
Jesus ‘came forth’; that is, probably from a short withdrawal with the Twelve. Brief repose snatched, He turned again to the work. The ‘great multitude’ did not make Him impatient, though, no doubt, some of the Apostles were annoyed. But He saw deeply into their condition, and pity welled in His heart. If we looked on the crowds in our great cities with Christ’s eyes, their spiritual state would be the most prominent thing in sight. And if we saw that as He saw it, disgust, condemnation, indifference, would not be uppermost, as they too often are, but some drop of His great compassion would trickle into our hearts. The masses are still ‘as sheep without a shepherd,’ ignorant of the way, and defenceless against their worst foes. Do we habitually try to cultivate as ours Christ’s way of looking at men, and Christ’s emotions towards men? If we do, we shall imitate Christ’s actions for men, and shall recognise that, to reproduce as well as we can the ‘many things’ which He taught them, is the best contribution which His disciples can make to healing the misery of a Christless world.
II. The difference between John and Mark in regard to the conversation of Jesus with the disciples about finding food for the crowd, is easily harmonised.
The Apostles, according to Mark, came with a suggestion of helpless embarrassment. They could think of nothing but to disperse the crowd, and so get rid of responsibility. He answers with a paradox of conscious power, which commands a seeming impossibility, and therein prophesies endowment that will make it possible. Has not the Church ever since been but too often faithless enough to let the multitudes drift away to ‘the cities and villages round about,’ and there, amid human remedies for their sore needs, ‘buy themselves,’ with much expenditure, a scanty provision? Are we not all tempted to shuffle off responsibility for the world’s hunger? Do we not often think that our resources are absurdly insufficient, and so, faintheartedly make them still less? Is not His command still, ‘Give ye them to eat’? Let us rise to the height of our duties and of our power, and be sure that whoever has Christ has enough for the world’s hunger, and is bound to call men from ‘that which is not bread,’ and to feed them with Him who is.
Philip’s morning calculation curiously in keeping with his character seems to have been repeated by the Apostles, as, no doubt, he had been saying the same thing all day at intervals. They had made a rough calculation of how much would be wanted. It was a sum far beyond their means. It was as much as about ?7. And where was such wealth as that in that company? But calculations which leave out Christ’s power are not quite conclusive. The Apostles had reckoned up the requirement, but they had not taken stock of their resources. So they were sent to hunt up what they could, and John tells us that it was Andrew who found the boy with five barley loaves and two fishes. How came a boy to be so provident? Probably he had come to try a bit of trade on his own account. At all events, the Twelve seem to have been able to buy his little stock, which done, they went back to tell Jesus, no doubt thinking that such a meagre supply would end all talk of their giving the crowd to eat. Jesus would have us count our own resources, not that we may fling up His work in despair, but that we may realise our dependence on Him, and that the consciousness of our own insufficiency may not diminish one jot our sense of obligation to feed the multitude. It is good to learn our own weakness if it drives us to lean on His strength. ‘Five loaves and two fishes,’ plus Jesus Christ, come to a good deal more than ‘two hundred pennyworth of bread.’
III. The miracle is told with beautiful vividness and simplicity.
The point at which the miraculous element entered is not definitely stated, but if each portion passed through the hands of Christ to the servers, and from them to the partakers, the multiplication of the bread must have been effected while it lay in His hand; that is to say, the loaves were not diminished by His giving. That is true about all divine gifts. He bestows, and is none the poorer. The streams flow from the golden vase, and, after all outpouring, it is brimful.
Many irrelevant difficulties have been raised about the mode of the miracle, and many lame analogies have been suggested, as if it but hastened ordinary processes. But these need not detain us. Note rather the great lesson which John records that our Lord Himself drew from this miracle. It was a symbol, in the material region, of His work in the spiritual, as all His miracles were. He is the Bread of the world. Ho gives Himself still, and in a yet more wonderful sense He gave His flesh for the life of the world. He gives us Himself for our own nourishment, and also that we may give Him to others. It was an honour to the Twelve that they should be chosen to be His almoners. It should be felt an honour by all Christians that through them Christ wills to feed a hungry world.
A somewhat different application of the miracle reminds us that Jesus uses our resources, scanty and coarse as five barley loaves, for the basis of His wonders. He did not create the bread, but multiplied it. Our small abilities, humbly acknowledged to be small, and laid in His hands, will grow. There is power enough in the Church, if the power were consecrated, to feed the world.
All four Gospels tell the command to gather up the ‘broken pieces’ not the fragments left by the eaters, but the unused pieces broken by Christ. This union of economy with creative power could never have been invented. Unused resources are retained. The exercise of Christian powers multiplies them, and after the feeding of thousands more remains than was possessed before. ‘There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.’
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 6:30-44
30The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. 31And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) 32They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. 33The people saw them going, and many recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the cities, and got there ahead of them. 34When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. 35When it was already quite late, His disciples came to Him and said, “This place is desolate and it is already quite late; 36send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37But He answered them, “You give them something to eat!” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?” 38And He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go look!” And when they found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39And He commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. 40They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 41And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all. 42They all ate and were satisfied, 43and they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish. 44There were five thousand men who ate the loaves.
Mar 6:30 “The apostles” This is the only use of the term in Mark’s Gospel. Usually he calls them “disciples.” “Apostle” comes from a Greek word meaning “to send” (apostell). Jesus chose twelve of His disciples to be with Him in a special sense and called them “apostles” (cf. Luk 6:13). This verb is often used of Jesus being sent from the Father (cf. Mat 10:40; Mat 15:24; Mar 9:37; Luk 9:48; Joh 4:34; Joh 5:24; Joh 5:30; Joh 5:36-38; Joh 6:29; Joh 6:38-40; Joh 6:57; Joh 7:29; Joh 8:42; Joh 10:36; Joh 11:42; Joh 17:3; Joh 17:8; Joh 17:18; Joh 17:21; Joh 17:23; Joh 17:25; Joh 20:21). In Jewish sources, the term was used of someone sent as an official representative of another, similar to “ambassador.” They functioned on this mission trip as surrogates of Jesus. Their power and authority was delegated.
“they reported to Him” This was part of Jesus’ training. He taught them, showed them how, sent them out, and debriefed them. This is how they learned. See Robert Coleman’s The Master Plan of Evangelism, which documents and implements Jesus’ training of His disciples/apostles.
Mar 6:31 As Jesus needed to get away from the press of the crowd (cf. Mar 3:20), now so did His disciples. People were coming to be helped twenty-four hours a day. Their training was not complete. They needed some privacy and some time!
Mar 6:32 “boat” This word usually refers to a large fishing trawler, which would hold up to thirteen men (cf. Mat 4:21-22; Mat 8:23; Act 21:2-3), but is also used of smaller boats (cf. Luk 5:2).
Mar 6:33 “ran there together on foot from all the cities” Can you imagine a huge crowd of the sick, lame, and curious people running along the shore? These people were desperate.
Mar 6:34 “He felt compassion for them” Jesus always had time for needy people (cf. Mat 9:36).
“like sheep without a shepherd” This metaphor has an OT basis (cf. Num 27:17; Eze 34:5; Zechariah 13). This may be a veiled allusion to Jesus’ words in John 10.
“He began to teach” Jesus’ response to the needs of the crowd was His teaching. They needed spiritual wholeness, not just physical restoration. Jesus met both needs (cf. Mat 14:14).
Mar 6:35 “‘This place is desolate'” This is the “secluded” place of Mar 6:31.
Mar 6:37 “‘You give them something to eat'” Jesus was testing the disciples’ faith. They accurately assessed the problem, now meet it!
“two hundred denarii” A denarius was a day’s wage for a common laborer (cf. Mat 20:2) or soldier.
Mar 6:38 “‘Five, and two fish'” They did not even have enough for themselves. Jesus was using this opportunity to show the disciples that what they have was enough and more if it was given to Him and if they trust Him!
Mar 6:39 “sit down by groups” This idiom (i.e., literally sumpin, sumpin, company, company) implied “get ready to eat!” Jesus seems to order the disciples to get the crowd organized for food distribution in a normal formation.
“on the green grass” This is an eyewitness detail of Peter. This would also imply a time close to the Passover Feast in the spring.
Mar 6:41 “looking up toward heaven” The common physical position for Jewish prayer was standing with the arms and head raised and eyes open. Jesus was showing that the source of His authority was the heavenly Father.
“broke. . .He kept giving” This is an aorist tense and an imperfect tense. The miracle of multiplication occurred in Jesus’ hands.
The parallel in John 6 makes the theological expectations of this crowd explicit. The Jews of Jesus’ day expected the Messiah to provide food for them as Moses did during the wilderness wanderings (cf. Joh 6:30-40). Jesus is giving them the very sign they requested, but they could not, or would not, see it.
Mar 6:42 This statement is used in the Septuagint (i.e., the Greek translation of the OT) for the OT people of God being filled by the manna and quail (cf. Psa 78:29; Psa 105:40). This OT theme is developed in Joh 6:30-40, where Jesus fulfills the rabbinical expectation of providing food as Moses did. Jesus is the new Moses; His deliverance is the new exodus; and He brings the new age of abundance (cf. Psa 132:15; Isa 49:10).
Mar 6:43 “twelve full baskets of the broken pieces and also of the fish” This shows that Jesus did not perform miracles for their daily food. They had to conserve what they had for future meals.
Some commentators (William Barclay) deny the miraculous element and assert that the boy shared his lunch (cf. Joh 6:9) and that others in the crowd saw it and shared their lunches. If so, where did the twelve baskets left over come from? Our biases affect interpretation in the same way the biases of the people of Jesus’ day affected them!
Mar 6:44 “five thousand men” This was a long run (cf. Mar 6:33) and a desolate place (cf. Mar 6:32). There probably were not many women and children. We do not know the exact size of the crowd. It was huge!
apostles. First occurrence in Mark.
told = reported to.
30-44.] FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. Mat 14:13-21. Luk 9:10-17. Joh 6:1-13. This is one of the very few points of comparison between the four Gospels during the ministry of our Lord. And here again I believe Marks report to be an original one, and of the very highest authority. Professor Bleek (Beitrge zur Evangelienkritik, p. 200) believes that Mark has used the Gospel of John,-on account of the 200 denarii in our Mar 6:37 and Joh 6:7;-and that he generally compiles his narrative from Matt. and Luke (ibid. p. 72-75), which has been elsewhere shewed to be utterly untenable. I believe Marks to be an original full account; Matt.s a compendium of this same account, but drawn up independently of Marks:-Lukes a compendium of another account:-Johns an independent narrative of his own as an eye-witness.
Mar 6:30. , gather themselves) together.- , the apostles) an appropriate appellation in this place.-, all things) The distribution of the all things follows, viz. both what-and what (- ). A most noble narration.
Mar 6:30-44
4. RETURN OF THE APOSTLES, AND
FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND
Mar 6:30-44
(Mat 14:13-21; Luk 9:10-17; Joh 6:1-14)
30 And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; –[The death of John the Baptist seems to have been the occasion of their coming together to Jesus. The greater portion, if not all of them, had been disciples of John. They regarded John as sent of God, and only second in importance, as a teacher sent from God, to himself.]
and they told him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.– [The twelve had made a tour among the Jews working miracles and preaching the gospel of the coming kingdom, and now returned to where Jesus was, and told him all things. He sent them out to teach and to work in his name and by his authority. It was proper they should give account of their works to him.]
31 And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.–Our Lord had sought retirement and rest before (Mat 12:15; Mar 4:35; Luk 5:16); now he seeks it for his disciples, having returned weary from their mission. It is proper for Christians to take brief periods of rest from hard and incessant toil.
For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.–[All that was said is not reported. It would make the account too cumbersome. Jesus approved their work and teaching, and no doubt they had been necessarily engaged in travel and labor as he had been. The death of John was a matter of sorrow to him and to them. He wished to be alone with his disciples, that he might have a season of prayerful communion with the Father and with them as a means of giving them spiritual strength and preparing them for labors and sufferings and disappointments yet before them. Jesus loved seasons of private prayer and communion with God.]
32 And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart. –[They were in Capernaum, and then went to Bethsaida. A boat seems to have always been at the service of Jesus. It was probably owned by Peter or some of his disciples, and they held it for his use when needed. They went across the Sea of Galilee to a point that would answer the demands. Those familiar with the country say it was twenty miles by land. They rowed across the sea;the people went around.]
33 And the people saw them going, and many knew them, and they ran together there on foot from all the cities, and outwent them.–They could probably watch the boat Jesus was in the whole way and knew how fast to travel to meet him when he landed. Some of them reached the place before Jesus did. They were attracted by what Jesus had already done.
34 And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd:–They had no spiritual teacher to guide, warn and instruct them, and hence were exposed to all kinds of spiritual danger and destruction from false teachers.
and he began to teach them many things.–[When he came out of the boat he saw the multitude assembled to meet him. Their condition, without a teacher or guide, caused him to think of them as scattered, wandering sheep without a shepherd. Sheep, when scattered from the flock without a shepherd, seem to be the most aimless and helpless of creatures. Thus these children of Abraham now seem to be to Jesus. Because he pitied their scattered and lost condition he began to teach them many things concerning his mission and the coming kingdom of God.]
35 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;–[This people had come hurriedly without preparation, were without food, and as the day waned they became hungry, and the disciples came to him and said, This is a desert place, no food can be obtained, the time for eating has passed. Their intense interest held them all day.]
36 send them away, that they may go into the country and villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat.–[Their suggestion was to dismiss them–we would say that they may scatter among the people living in the country around and in the neighboring villages, and lodge for the night and buy bread, for they have none.]
37 But he answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings’ worth of bread, and give them to eat?–[He told the disciples he could not send them away without food, as they had walked twenty miles in the morning, remained till it is now late. The evening had come, and they have had no food. “Give them to eat”–that is, he told the disciples to furnish the food for them. And they say unto him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings’ worth of bread, and give them to eat?” They estimated it would take this amount to buy bread enough for them to eat, and, although the disciples knew the country, they did not know where to find the food. The quantity of food a given sum of money will buy varies so greatly at different periods of the world, it is needless to speculate as to the amount. It was a large amount. They thought the proposition unreasonable.]
38 And he saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. –All they could find. [He seems to have known there was some food in reach. Then they examine and report they find a lad with five barley loaves and two fishes. (Joh 6:9.) We have no intimation as to the size of the loaf. They likely intended returning in the afternoon. If not, they would fast. John (Joh 6:5-6) says Jesus asked Philip, “Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him.” Philip was of Bethsaida, and knew the country and its resources.]
39 And he commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the green grass.–Jesus had a clear conception of what he would do, and so he tells the apostles to make the people sit upon the green grass, which seems to be abundant in this place and at this season.
40 And thy sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. –[They were separated into companies of fifties and hundreds, and so seated that one could pass between the ranks and wait upon all in order.]
41 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.– [He took these in hand, now before him, looked up to heaven, and blessed. He gave thanks for them–bestowed such a divine blessing upon them that they grew as he brake from them, so they did not grow less. John (Joh 6:9) tells us they were barley loaves–not so palatable or nutritious as those of wheat. Revelation (Rev 6:6) says: “A measure of wheat for a shilling and three measures of barley for a shilling.” The barley was the food for the poor. But to a multitude hungry as these were the coarsest food is delicious. Jesus took the loaves, and as he brake they grew in his hands. We cannot conceive of the work. Miracles are above human conception. It was as though something was created of nothing. He broke the loaves and gave to his disciples, and they handed them to the multitudes. The two fishes were divided among the thousands. They also grew as they were divided. This is a miracle that excited wonder, yet there was no more wisdom or power required to do this than was required to put in operation the provisions of nature by which the multiplied millions of earth are year by year supplied with the food needed. In this latter case wisdom and power are manifested to provide for the necessary wants of all the animal creation. Because it is done through fixed laws, we are unable to say who is the mover and giver of these things. When Christ or an apostle did such works, we could identify such person as speaking by the authority and in the name of the creator and ruler of all’ things.]
42 And they all ate, and were filled.–[All ate of the five loaves and the two little fishes; all were filled; their hunger was satisfied. They were strengthened, and more remained than they had to begin with.]
43 And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes.–[The number of baskets were twelve; thus each apostle filled his basket. We have no means of knowing the size of the baskets, but much more was taken after all were satisfied than Jesus took and blessed. John (Joh 6:12) says, “He [Jesus] saith unto his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost.” The economy of God is seen in the workings of the natural world. The decay of one thing is taken up in the growth of others, and here, although Jesus created this seemingly without labor or loss of time, he was careful that nothing of it should be lost. This is a lesson regarding wastefulness that he intended for his children in the world. The difference between the conditions of the people of poverty and plenty depends more upon their carefulness in saving or their wastefulness than upon any other cause. Many families, although poor, waste more than would support them if they were saving. They remain poor because they waste. The careful, saving person, as a rule, lives much better than the wasteful and profligate. The wasteful never are able to give to those in need. A painstaking care of the fragments ought to be taught as a Christian virtue.]
44 And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men.–Matthew (Mat 14:21) adds, “Besides women and children.” Jesus not only gave here an object lesson in economy, but by the amount left he showed that this was a miracle beyond all doubt.
the Sympathy and Compassion of Jesus
Mar 6:30-56
When the Apostles returned they had much to tell. Some were flushed with success, others radiant with victory over demons, others, perhaps, overstrained and weary, and all needing the quiet, holy influence of repose and silence in the Lords company. And in those quiet hours or days, as the fever passed out of them, He taught them memorable lessons of how He would feed the world by His Church, and how His people would be safe amid the storms that swept the sea, for always he would watch them from the height, and come to them at the moment when His help was most needed. Christ sits as host at the great table of the Church, and the meager resources of His servants yield the starting point for His multiplication of bread. He bids us go and consider how little we have, that we may properly estimate the greatness of His help. Notice how the upward look precedes the breaking and giving. There is enough for each, not of bread alone, but of fish; and the disciples are refreshed by another kind of ministry. So the Lord recreates us by turning exhausted energies into new channels. What threatens to overpower us brings Christ to our side. But His footsteps must be arrested, if we would have His company. Where Jesus is, storms cease and the sick are made whole.
CHAPTER 26
They have nothing to eat.
And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And he said 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 departed into a desert place by ship privately. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward 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, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. 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? 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 to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his 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 twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men. And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.
Mar 6:30-46
In Mar 6:36 we are told of this great multitude that, They have nothing to eat. That is a good description of us. Hungry sinners come to Christ with nothing to eat. We have nothing. We can provide nothing for ourselves. We have tried to feed our souls on the swine husks of materialism, ritualism, ceremonialism, and even licentiousness, but found nothing to satisfy our souls! So we come to Christ, hungry and thirsty, having nothing to eat.
Yet, before the day was over, we read that five thousand men (not including women and children), did all eat, and were filled. Not only did the Son of God feed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish, when everyone had eaten all he wanted, the disciples took up twelve baskets full of fragments! May God the Holy Sprit teach us the meaning of this great miracle and the lessons contained in this passage. Christ alone is able to feed and satisfy immortal souls. May we ever be fed by him and fed upon him, who is the Bread of Life, fed to the satisfaction of our souls.
Christs Servants
First, Mark was inspired to describe the conduct of Christs servants, when they returned from their first preaching mission. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught(v.30). These are very instructive words. Every servant of God should do exactly what these Apostles did. When preparing to preach, they must seek a message from the Master. While preaching, they must seek the Lords power, wisdom, grace, and strength. When the message is done, they must report back to the Master, tell him all they have done and taught in his name, and seek his Spirit to make their labors effectual.
In the work of the ministry nothing is so important as prayer. Prayer moves him who moves heaven and earth. Prayer displays faith in and dependence upon Christ. Let every gospel preacher be diligent in study, devoted in labor, and ardent in preaching. But the secret of power in the pulpit is prayer. Blessed is that church which has a praying pastor, one who knows he cannot preach without the power of Gods Spirit, one who cries with Ezekiel, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live (Eze 37:9). He is a faithful pastor, he is a faithful servant of God who gives himself to prayer and the ministry of the Word (Act 6:4).
Christs Instruction
Second, I want to show you Christs instruction to these faithful disciples who had been ministering to the souls of men. And he said 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 departed into a desert place by ship privately (Mar 6:31-32).
I realize that there are very few who need instruction about the necessity of rest and relaxation. There are very few who are so zealously devoted to the work of the gospel that they do not even have time to sit down for a meal. Yet, for those few who are so devoted, our Lords words here are very needful. Someone said, We must come apart for a while, or we will come apart.
The work of the ministry is, to a faithful man, a matter of tremendous labor. It is a labor of the heart and mind, involving the entire life of a man (Rom 1:1; 2Co 11:28). Yet, while constantly ministering to the souls of others, faithful men are in great danger of neglecting their own souls (Son 1:6). J.C. Ryle wrote, The prosperity of a mans ministry and public work is intimately bound up with the prosperity of his own soul. Our Lord knows that we carry the treasure of his gospel in earthen vessels. He knows that we are only weak, frail mortals, compassed with many infirmities. If it is not abused, occasional times of rest, reflection, relaxation, and recuperation are very useful and beneficial. We must never become so encumbered with doing things for Christ and serving him that we fail to take the time to sit quietly at his feet and hear his Word. Our Master does not require more than we can do. And it is better to do little and do it well than to do much and do it haphazardly.
Christs Compassion
Third, in Mar 6:33-34 we are given a glimpse of Christs compassion. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.
Our dear Savior was moved with compassion as he beheld the multitudes before him. That which moved him was the fact that these thousands standing before him stood before him as sheep not having a shepherd. They had plenty of priests, but no priests from God. They had preachers, but no preacher after Gods own heart to feed them with knowledge and understanding. They had prophets in abundance; but they were all prophets of deceit. They had religious forms and ceremonies, traditions and customs, devotion and zeal; but they had nothing to eat. Their form of godliness was empty and meaningless. They knew nothing of the power of godliness. They knew nothing of the gospel. Their religion was all husk. Thousands of immortal souls stood before our Lord Jesus, ignorant, helpless, and needy, on the high road to hell, the high road of religious darkness, blindness, ignorance, self-righteousness, and superstition! Angry as he was when denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees, those who should have taught the people the way of life, when our Lord beheld the perishing multitudes, he was ever moved with compassion toward them. How often we read that our Savior was moved with compassion toward those who stood before him as he walked through the earth (Mat 9:36; Mat 14:14; Mat 15:32; Mat 20:34; Mar 1:41; Mar 5:19; Mar 8:2; Luk 7:13; Luk 10:33; Luk 15:20).
When our Lord saw the sick, he was moved with compassion toward them, and healed them. When he saw these thousands of people out in a desert place, ready to faint for hunger, he was moved with compassion for them and fed them. This great feature in our Lords character can never be remembered too often, esteemed too highly, or declared too frequently. The movement of his heart toward the sick and needy before him shows us how tender and affectionate our Savior was and is. How often we read of our Saviors compassion toward men! These words are not given to fill up space. They are written in the Book of God because the Lord God intends for us to understand that he who is our God is a God full of compassion! God the Holy Spirit intends for us to know and be assured of the tenderness of Christs love to his own. His are the mercies and compassions of a man who is himself God. The tender mercies of the eternal God flow to chosen sinners through the God-man Christ Jesus.
The mercies and compassions of our God and Savior are the mercies and compassions of God, for he is over all, God blessed for ever. But they are no less the mercies and compassions of the Man Christ Jesus, for, verily, He took not on him the nature of Angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. In Christ Jesus, the God-man, our Savior, there is both an infinite fulness of mercy and a tenderness of feeling (the tenderness of perfect manhood) toward his redeemed. Being full of compassion, he forgives our iniquity and destroys us not, turns away his anger, and stirs not up all his wrath (Psa 78:38).
The word, compassion, is very expressive. It means, as Spurgeon put it, His whole being was stirred to its lowest depth, and therefore he proceeded at once to work miracles of mercy among them. He knew that many in the crowd had no faith in him and no love for him. They followed him because of curiosity, because the crowds went after him, or because they wanted to see a miracle. Yet, our Master pitied them. All were fed. All were relieved. All were filled.
Let no one ever question the gracious character of our God and Savior (Exo 34:6). He delighteth in mercy (Mic 7:18). Let all who profess to be followers of Christ follow him in his example of mercy and compassion (Joh 13:25; Gal 6:1-2; Eph 4:32 to Eph 5:1; Jas 1:27). J. C. Ryle rightly urges, Let us never forget that our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. High in heaven, at Gods right hand, He still looks with compassion on the children of men. He still pities the ignorant, and them that are gone out of the way.
Being moved with compassion toward them, our Savior not only healed the sick and fed them, but also began to teach them many things. I have no doubt at all what he taught them. He taught these people the same, blessed gospel he taught everywhere else: their need of grace, the necessity and nature of the new birth, the purpose of his coming, the wonders of redemption by his blood, and the blessedness of repentance and faith.
Here is a place for personal examination. We must not attempt to examine and judge one another; but we must examine and judge ourselves, lest we be judged with the world. Am I like my Savior, tenderly concerned for and moved with compassion toward perishing sinners? Do I really care for eternity bound men and women? Am I willing and ready to meet and minister to the needs of those around me?
These are serious questions. Do not answer them in haste. We ought to look upon ourselves as Paul did, as debtors to all men. We ought to use every means to preach the gospel to eternity bound men and women. We ought to give willingly for the spread of the gospel throughout the world. If the definition of a Christian is one who is Christ like, it must be concluded that anyone who is not moved with compassion toward the souls of men is not a Christian.
Christs Patience
Mar 6:35-36 give us another display of Christs patience. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.
These disciples were so much like us! Rather than trusting the Lord to do that which was wisest and best, they presumed that they knew what was wisest and best. Judging by what they could see, that it was well past the time for supper, that the people had nothing to eat, that they were a long way from town, and that the crowd was hungry, they said to he Lord Jesus to send them away to get something to eat. They leaned to their own understanding, rather than trusting in the Lord. Yet, the Lord Jesus was so patient! How much like them we are! Yet, the Lord Jesus is patient!
Christs Power
Christs power as God is manifestly displayed in the miracle recorded in Mar 6:37-44.
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? 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 to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his 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 twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
Our Lord Jesus fed five thousand men, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fish. We are distinctly told that the crowd had nothing to eat. There was one boy in the bunch who had just these five loaves and two small fish with him. These were put into the Masters hands. With them, the Lord Jesus fed about twenty thousand people; and after dinner the disciples took up twelve baskets full of fragments. What a banquet! We would be wise to store up the facts here revealed in our hearts and minds, so that we may remember them in times of need.
He who is our Savior is also God our Creator, one whose power to protect and provide for us is the power of omnipotence. He does not need us to do anything; but he graciously condescends to use such things as we are in the accomplishment of his miracles of mercy.
Those five loaves and two small fish were insignificant. Such a little could never feed such a crowd, but it did! That little boys lunch was utterly insignificant, until it was put in the hands of the Son of God. That boy could never have dreamed of feeding twenty thousand people that day, but he did!
That which is given to Christ is never wasted, lost, or even diminished, but only increases. That which was given was very little, but that which was done with it was very great. That boy did not give much; but he gave what he could. He gave all he had at the time; and God honored his gift. There are some lessons to be learned here about giving. Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine (Pro 3:9-10).
This I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. (2Co 9:6-11)
Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (Gal 6:6-10)
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luk 6:38)
Christs Provision
In Mar 6:42 we are given an example of Christs provision. And they did all eat, and were filled. I am told that the Jews, like good Southern ladies, did not consider it a meal unless everyone had all he wanted, and looked upon it as a shameful embarrassment if there was not a good amount left over after everyone had eaten his fill.
Be that as it may, this is certain: All who feed at Christs banqueting table are well fed! His provisions of grace are infinitely bountiful. His redemption is plenteous redemption. His righteousness is righteousness enough for our souls. His forgiveness is infinite forgiveness. His peace is peace that passeth understanding. The life he gives is abundant, eternal life. His grace is super-abounding grace!
Like his grace, our Saviors provisions of providence are overflowing with goodness. Robert Hawker wrote
If from a few loaves and fishes the Lord Christ made such a supply for so great a multitude, and left such an over plus, think, what infinite resources are with our God, for every occasion, to both the spiritual, and temporal necessities of his chosen? Very blessed is the apostles conclusion on this point, when he saith; But my God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Those who drink at his well always find it full. Those who feed from his barrel of meal always find bread enough and to spare. Those who fill their vessels from his supply of oil always have their vessels filled. The only vessel that is empty is the vessel that is not brought to him (Psa 34:7-10; Psa 37:23-25; Luk 22:35). That has been my experience. I have never lacked for anything. Have you? Has he not proved himself faithful to you?
Christs Conduct
And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray (Mar 6:45-46).
Our Lord constrained his disciples to take a ship to Bethsaida, knowing full well that he was sending them into the eye of a terrible storm. He sent his beloved disciples into the storm deliberately. He came to his disciples and made himself known to them in the storm in a way that they could not have known him otherwise. And he brought them safely through the storm.
When he had sent his disciples away into the storm, the Lord Jesus went up into a mountain to pray. What a picture that is! Child of God, your Savior, your Master, your Lord has sent you through many a storm and will yet send you through many more. Sometimes he acts as if he is going to simply pass you by and leave you in the storm; but he never will. He who sent you into the storm has gone up into the high mountain of heaven. There he prays for you and makes intercession on your behalf before the throne of God (Joh 17:6-19; Joh 17:25-26).
The Gospel
This miracle serves as a beautiful and clear allegory of the gospel of Gods grace. We must never attempt to make allegories where the Holy Spirit does not make them. We must never try to make the Scriptures say what they obviously do not say. But just as Paul used Sarah and Hagar as an allegory to teach the distinction between law and grace (Galatians 4), so the Holy Spirit has given us these recorded miracles of Christ to teach us spiritual, gospel truths.
This hungry multitude in a desert place is a good representation of lost mankind in this world. All the sons of Adam are an assembly of perishing souls, lost, helpless, starving, and upon the verge of eternal ruin, without the gospel of Christ. There is but a breath between them and everlasting ruin. Their only hope of salvation is the gospel of Christ (Rom 1:15-16).
The loaves and fishes, so readily despised as being inadequate to meet the needs of so many, might well be looked upon as representing the preaching of the gospel, Jesus Christ and him crucified, which God has ordained for the saving of his elect (1Co 1:21-23; Joh 6:33). Like the loaves and fish in this passage, the preaching of the cross of Christ meets all the spiritual needs of sinners in this world.
The disciples passing out the loaves and fishes to the crowd shows us the sphere of human instrumentality. I cannot make loaves and fish; but I can bring my lunch to the Master. I cannot multiply the loaves and fish; but I can pass them out. I cannot save anyone or do anything to help anyone get saved; but I can preach the gospel to eternity bound sinners. And what I can do, and have the opportunity and means to do, I am responsible to do. And the same is true of you. Bring your lunch to Christ and watch him work!
The satisfaction of all the crowd and the baskets full leftover, appear to me to be a beautiful representation of the fulness of grace to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He freely gives all to all who trust him. All who come to him have all they want and need. Finding all in him, we find satisfaction for our souls. Drinking the water that he gives, we never thirst again. Yet, the storehouse of grace is never diminished. In our Fathers house there is bread enough and to spare!
the apostles: Mar 6:7-13, Luk 9:10, Luk 10:17
both: Act 1:1, Act 20:18-21, 1Ti 4:12-16, Tit 2:6, Tit 2:7, 1Pe 5:2, 1Pe 5:3
Reciprocal: Gen 24:66 – General Mat 14:13 – General
Chapter 3.
The Return of the Twelve
“And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And He said 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 departed into a desert place by ship privately. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto Him.”-Mar 6:30-33.
Apostles and Disciples.
We may almost regard Mar 6:14-29 as an interpolation in the sequence of the narrative. At any rate Mar 6:30 links itself naturally to Mar 6:13. The paragraph that extends from Mar 6:7 to Mar 6:13 tells the story of the sending of the Twelve. This paragraph tells the story of their return.
“And the Apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus” (Mar 6:30). This is the only place in which Mark gives this official title of “Apostles” to the Twelve. But there is a special fitness and appropriateness in its use in this particular connection. For what does the word “Apostle” mean? It means literally, “one who is sent forth; a messenger.” Now glance back at Mar 6:7. What do we read? “And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two.” The men who came back to Jesus were Apostles, because they were men who had been “sent forth” on the errands of the King. But for the rest Mark never applies the title to them, for the simple reason that this is the only instance of “sending forth” of which he tells us. All through the rest of the Gospel they are not Apostles-“men sent forth,” messengers, preachers; they are disciples, students, learners. So apparently in Mark’s Gospel the title “Apostle” is not used as a title of rank; it is the name of an office, and only when they actually discharged the functions of that office is the title applied to them. “And the Apostles gather themselves together (i.e. from the various towns and villages whither they had gone to preach) unto Jesus; and they told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught” (Mar 6:30).
The Revision of the Master.
The sending forth of the Twelve had been more or less of an experiment. They had by no means reached the end of the disciple stage. They were far from fully understanding Christ’s mind and entering into His purposes. It was simply the pressure of an urgent need, the vision of the plenteous harvest waiting for labourers, that induced Jesus to thrust forth these twelve men, raw and immature as they were, to try their prentice hands at the work of evangelism. Now the mission tour is over, and the Twelve are all eagerness to tell their Master how they got on in their first attempts at preaching; they relate to Him their experiences; they tell Him “all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.”
For their mission had that twofold aspect-they were sent forth to do something, and to proclaim something. Christ gave them authority to heal the sick and cast out devils, and He bade them proclaim whithersoever they went that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Dr. Host, in his book Ecclesia, says that this twofold function is characteristic of the Apostle. Teaching and healing constituted his double duty. And so now these Apostles, on their return from their first missionary tour, present their report to Jesus under these two heads-“they told Him whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.” They told Him of the cures they had wrought, and the sermons they had preached, and the reception their preaching had met with.
The Full Report.
They told Him “all things.” They kept nothing back from their Master. Every little detail of their tour they submitted to Jesus for His criticism and judgment. I am sure that the Master saw mistakes and blunders in the story of what they had done. Indeed, one of the Evangelists suggests that He saw and had gently but firmly to rebuke a certain boastfulness they showed in their possession of miraculous powers. But if they did make mistakes, they took the very best means of correcting and avoiding them, for they told Jesus “all things.” And somehow, in the mere telling of their story to Him, they became conscious of what was wrong and faulty in their work. Whatever was amiss in their service revealed itself in the presence of Jesus. I do not think that Jesus needed to point out their mistakes to them, and say, “you blundered here and there.” When they came into touch with Him, when they looked at their work in the light of His countenance, they instinctively recognised what it was they had said or done amiss. “They told Him all things.” That was-shall I say?-the Apostolic safeguard. This was how they discovered their faults and mistakes, and made themselves the great preachers they afterwards became-they told Him all things.
-Of Things done.
With the example of these twelve Apostles before us, let me declare the duty and the inestimable advantage of telling Jesus all things. It would be for our eternal profit, if periodically, say, at the close of each day, we reported all our doings to the Lord Jesus Christ. I am persuaded that many people are making the most ghastly mistakes, that, indeed, they are going far towards making wreck and ruin of their lives, all because they do not cultivate this habit of telling Jesus “all things.” For there are many things which at present we practise which we should feel constrained for ever to abandon, if we reported them to Jesus Christ. In His presence we should discover their essential unworthiness, not to say wickedness. For things that pass muster by the standards of human society, and seem all right when looked at in the crowd, seem all wrong when we speak about them to Jesus. And so, to save us from poor, base and ignoble living, to save us from those tragic mistakes that lay life waste, I urge you to tell Jesus all things.
The Practice of Recollection.
In other words, we must practise what the Roman Catholics call the habit of recollection. “Recollection,” according to Faber, “is a double attention which we pay first to God, and then to ourselves.” It is the realisation of the presence of God, and then the scrutiny in our own hearts and lives in that presence. It is the looking at all things whatsoever we have done in the light of God’s countenance. I know all that can be said about morbid and unhealthy introspection. I know that there is danger in introspection, carried to an extreme. But I know also that without introspection, without this practice of looking at everything in the presence of Jesus, the Christian life is not possible at all. I read of one of the ancient Stoics, that it was part of his spiritual and moral discipline each night quietly to review the events of the day, and to note where he had gone astray, and to make resolutions of amendment. That is the discipline I commend to you; only instead of talking over the day’s doings just with ourselves, I invite you to talk them over with Jesus.
-How it may help us.
Do you not think that it would make a great difference to us if we did this? Supposing, for instance, the business man, when the day’s work was finished, told Jesus all things whatsoever he had done, submitted his business books to His perusal. Do you not think that possibly he might see a necessity for amending some of his business methods? Supposing a serving man or maid, when the day’s work was completed, told Jesus all things whatsoever he or she had done? Do you not think that each might possibly see things to be ashamed of? And supposing you and I, when the day was drawing to its close, reported all its doings to the Lord. Do you not think that we might see evil thoughts, foolish words, petty and malicious gossip, pride and envy and jealousy, of which we ought to repent in dust and ashes? I know that to be made to recognise our own faults and failures is a very painful discipline; but it is a very salutary one. To recognise our shortcomings is the first step towards amendment. Repentance is the condition of entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. And so, in the interests of your own souls, make a habit of telling Jesus “all things” whatsoever you have done.
The Report of things said.
“All things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.” They told Jesus not only about the cures they had wrought; they told Him also about the sermons they had preached. They submitted their sermons to Him, for criticism and judgment. I am filled with admiration for the wisdom of the Twelve in so doing. What an example to us preachers! I am sometimes tempted to think that we are in danger of submitting our preaching to the judgment of the wrong authorities. I do not think that many are guilty of the baseness of preaching to please their congregation. In spite of the often repeated charge made in our newspapers, and sometimes repeated by those who themselves ought to know better, I do not for one minute believe that we are guilty of the crime of believing one thing and preaching another; of reserving the truth we really accept, and only giving forth what we know congregations like to hear. But I do sometimes think that ministers and preachers go a great deal too much in fear of the Press, and the person who calls himself the “modern thinker.” After all, the great concern of a preacher is not whether the reporter approves his words, or whether the man of modern mind says that at last he has found a religion that is rational. The great question is, whether Jesus Christ approves. And it would be our salvation as preachers if we carried our sermons, not into the limelight of public judgment, but into the pure light of the presence of our Lord. We shall never go far astray if we tell Him all things, whatsoever we teach.
Anticipating the Judgment Day.
“And they told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.” Thus they anticipated the Judgment Day. For that is the judgment, when the soul reviews its doings and sayings in the presence of Jesus. The Lord, Paul says, “will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1Co 4:5). “There is nothing hid,” said Jesus Himself, “that shall not be manifested; neither was anything kept secret, but that it should come abroad” (Mar 4:22). That is to say, however painful the discipline may be, there is coming a time when we shall have to tell Jesus all things. But what a day it will be, if we have only a record of tragic mistakes and failure to tell! Happy they who deem every day a Judgment Day; who make! a practice day by day of telling Jesus all things; I who receive His gentle corrections, and find grace to amend their sinful lives! For such the other Judgment Day has no terrors-each man shall receive his praise from God.
The Need of Repose.
“They told Him all things.” In what conditions were these twelve men, now that they had returned from their tour? They were tired, and they were excited. They were in great need of quiet rest-not simply rest from physical exertion, but quietness for fellowship with their Master, which never failed to soothe and refresh their souls. And Jesus was quick to note their need. “Come ye yourselves apart,” He said to these tired and excited men, “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” (Mar 6:31). Mr. David Smith, in his recent Life of Christ, finds the reason for this retreat across the lake in Jesus Himself. There was a plot on foot among the people, he suggests, to force Christ’s hand, and make Him declare Himself King; and the disciples were privy to it. The ringleaders were intent on the business, and Jesus observed them going to and fro, so eagerly that they had not leisure so much as to eat. And it was to escape this zeal, which was not according to knowledge, that Jesus took Himself and His disciples away from the excitement of Capernaum to the quietness of the uninhabited lake. But, though it is quite likely there was some such excitement as Mr. Smith describes, his version does not tally with the Evangelist’s story. It was not for His own sake, but for His disciples’ sake that Jesus withdrew to a desert place apart. He was thinking, not of Himself, but of them, and so now I get another illustration of that quality so characteristic of Jesus-His tender consideration for others.
The Tender Consideration of Christ.
“Christ pleased not Himself” (Rom 15:3), the Apostle says. His concern was never for Himself, but for others. He forgot His own great grief and heavy burdens in His compassion for the griefs and burdens of others. “Weep not for Me,” He said to the women of Jerusalem, as He toiled along up Calvary’s slope with the cross upon His back, “but weep for yourselves, and for your children” (Luk 23:28). Indeed, Christ’s life might be summed up from first to last in that little phrase, “for others.” For Bethlehem was for others; and Nazareth was for others; the labours of Galilee were for others, and the cross of Calvary was for others. Now, at the right hand of the throne on high, He is still busy interceding for others. And that is what we see here: Jesus forgetting Himself in His tender care for others. He had just received news of the death of His kinsman and forerunner, John the Baptist. In itself that would have been a deep and piercing sorrow. Yet His own unfathomable grief did not make Him insensible to the lesser need of others. He saw these disciples of His tired and excited. He forgot His own sorrow in care for them. “Come ye yourselves apart, and rest a while.” “Have this mind in you,” says the Apostle, “which was also in Christ Jesus” (Php 2:5). It is the unselfish mind. We, too, should think about others and care for others. We are in the footsteps of Jesus when we cultivate
“A heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathise.”
The Costliness of Service.
“Come ye yourselves apart, and rest a while.” In that call of Christ I get a hint of the costliness of service. In a sense these twelve men were used to hard work. The majority of them were horny-handed fishermen. They knew what it was to battle with the gale, to fight grim fights with wind and wave. They knew what it was to labour all through the long dark night. In some respects, I suppose, there is no task physically more wearying and toilsome than the fisherman’s. But they had discovered that, toilsome and fatiguing though it was to catch fish, the work of catching men was more toilsome and fatiguing still. The one cost them physical energy and sweat, this latter made a drain upon soul and spirit. Their missionary tour left them spent and worn and exhausted. So spiritual service always costs. It exacts its toil from the man who renders it. There may be easy posts and places in life; I do not know-but there are no easy places in Christ’s service. Fishing- for souls is an exhausting business. For prayer is no mere form of words glibly repeated; prayer is a wrestle, an agony. Teaching is no easy performance; it is a pouring forth of the soul; it makes a drain upon the vital energies; it costs blood and tears. Think of Jesus Himself; how His teaching drained Him of strength, and left Him spent. Look at Him falling into a sleep in the stern of the boat-a sleep so deep that not even the roar of the storm could wake Him. That is only an illustration of the costliness of service. And these disciples were suffering in their measure from the same weariness and exhaustion. Their preaching tour had cost them nothing in money, but it had made vast demands upon their emotions and sympathies and spiritual energies.
The Provision for Refreshment.
“Come ye,” said Jesus to these tired men, “yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” Here is our Lord’s provision for the refreshing and renewal of these tired men. “Come apart into a desert place, and rest.” The body needs periodic rest to recoup and refresh itself. God draws the curtain of night. He gives us the boon of sleep, and in the quiet restfulness of our sleeping hours Nature repairs the physical losses caused by the labours of the day. And the soul too needs rest. Indeed, by so much as soul work is more costly and exhausting, by so much is the soul’s need of rest and quietness the more urgent. And so Christ calls to us still to come aside and rest. The Christian life has a double aspect. It is a life of service, and of communion. Communion that does not end in service is unhealthy, but service without communion is sterile and barren, and in the long run impossible. It is the communion I am anxious about. I am not afraid of lack of activity, but do we give the soul its quiet times? Is our ineffectiveness due to the fact that our spiritual energies are exhausted? We must pay more regard to the soul’s quiet times….” Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee” (Isa 26:20). We shall emerge with new stores of power. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa 40:31).
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The apostles made this report under the commission of verses 7-13.
LET us mark in this passage, the conduct of the apostles when they returned from their first mission as preachers. We read that they “gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.”
These words are deeply instructive. They are a bright example to all ministers of the Gospel, and to all laborers in the great work of doing good to souls. All such should daily do as the apostles did on this occasion. They should tell all their proceedings to the great Head of the Church. They should spread all their work before Christ, and ask of Him counsel, guidance, strength, and help.
Prayer is the main secret of success in spiritual business. It moves Him who can move heaven and earth. It brings down the promised aid of the Holy Ghost, without whom the finest sermons, the clearest teaching, and the most diligent working, are all alike in vain. It is not always those who have the most eminent gifts who are most successful laborers for God. It is generally those who keep up closest communion with Christ and are most instant in prayer. It is those who cry with the prophet Ezekiel, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.” (Eze 37:9.) It is those who follow most exactly the apostolic model, and “give themselves to prayer, and the ministry of the word.” (Act 6:4.) Happy is that church which has a praying as well as a preaching ministry! The question we should ask about a new minister, is not merely “Can he preach well?” but “Does he pray much for his people and his work?”
Let us mark, in the second place, the words of our Lord to the apostles, when they returned from their first public ministry. “He said unto them, come ye apart yourselves into a desert place, and rest a while.”
These words are full of tender consideration. Our Lord knows well that His servants are flesh as well as spirit, and have bodies as well as souls. He knows that at best they have a treasure in earthen vessels, and are themselves compassed with many infirmities. He shows them that He does not expect from them more than their bodily strength can do. He asks for what we can do, and not for what we cannot do. “Come ye apart,” He says, “and rest a while.”
These words are full of deep wisdom. Our Lord knows well that His servants must attend to their own souls as well as the souls of others. He knows that a constant attention to public work is apt to make us forget our own private soul-business, and that while we are keeping the vineyards of others, we are in danger of neglecting our own. (Song of Son 1:6.) He reminds us that it is good for ministers to withdraw occasionally from public work, and look within. “Come ye apart,” He says, “into a desert place.”
There are few unhappily in the church of Christ, who need these admonitions. There are but few in danger of overworking themselves, and injuring their own bodies and souls by excessive attention to others. The vast majority of professing Christians are indolent and slothful, and do nothing for the world around them. There are few comparatively who need the bridle nearly so much as the spur. Yet these few ought to lay to heart the lessons of this passage. They should economize their health as a talent, and not squander it away like gamblers. They should be content with spending their daily income of strength, and should not draw recklessly on their principal. They should remember that to do a little, and do it well, is often the way to do most in the long run. Above all they should never forget to watch their own hearts jealously, and to make time for regular self-examination, and calm meditation. The prosperity of a man’s ministry and public work is intimately bound up with the prosperity of his own soul. Occasional retirement is one of the most useful ordinances.
Finally, let us mark the feelings of our Lord Jesus Christ towards the people who came together to Him. We read that He “was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep without a shepherd.” They were destitute of teachers. They had no guides but the blind Scribes and Pharisees. They had no spiritual food but man-made traditions. Thousands of immortal souls stood before our Lord, ignorant, helpless, and on the high-road to ruin. It touched the gracious heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was “moved with compassion toward them. He began to teach them many things.”
Let us never forget that our Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He never changes. High in heaven, at God’s right hand, He still looks with compassion on the children of men. He still pities the ignorant, and them that are out of the way. He is still willing to “teach them many things.” Special as His love is towards His own sheep who hear His voice, He still has a mighty general love towards all mankind-a love of real pity, a love of compassion. We must not overlook this. It is a poor theology which teaches that Christ cares for none except believers. There is warrant in Scripture for telling the chief of sinners, that Jesus pities them, and cares for their souls, that Jesus is willing to save them, and invites them to believe and be saved.
Let us ask ourselves, as we leave the passage, whether we know anything of the mind of Christ? Are we, like Him, tenderly concerned about the souls of the unconverted? Do we, like Him, feel deep compassion for all who are yet as sheep without a shepherd? Do we care about the impenitent and ungodly near our own doors? Do we care about the Heathen, the Jew, the Mohametan, and the Roman Catholic in foreign lands? Do we use every means, and give our money willingly, to spread the Gospel in the world? These are serious questions, and demand a serious reply. The man who cares nothing for the souls of other people is not like Jesus Christ. It may well be doubted whether he is converted himself, and knows the value of his own soul.
Mar 6:30. And they told him all things. This report was probably given at a time previously appointed for their reassembling.
Observe here, 1. How the report of John’s death being brought to Christ, he presently withdraws, and his disciples with him, from that place into the desert. Christ will not long continue his presence in those places where any of his servants are slain, and others of them are in danger.
Observe, 2. How our Saviour, upon the notice of John’s death, flies into the desert for his own preservation; his hour was not yet come, and therefore he keeps out of Herod’s way. It is no cowardice to fly from the rage of persecutors. Christ himself both practised it, and directed his disciples to it, saying, When they persecute you in one city flee to another. We must not expose our lives to hazard, but when the laying down our lives will do God and religion more service than we can do by living.
Observe, 3. With what condolency and sympathizing pity our blessed Saviour exercised acts of mercy and compassion, when the objects of compassion were before him. Jesus seeing the multitude, was moved with compassion toward them. Christ, when here on earth, did bear a tender and compassionate heart towards poor creatures in distress and misery: and to our comfort he retains the same compassionate nature and disposition now in heaven which he had here on earth.
Observe, 4. The ground or cause of this compassion in our Saviour, because they were as sheep having no shepherd.
Learn thence, That the case of such people is very sad, and their condition to be much lamented and pitied, who are destitute of able, faithful, and conscientious pastors and teachers, to feed them with the spiritual good of the word and sacraments. Where provision fails, the people perish. But was the Jewish church now without pastors, as sheep without a shepherd? Had they not the Pharisees, the scribes, and the doctors, to teach and instruct them? Yes, no doubt; but they were no pastors in Christ’s account, because unfaithful pastors.
Thence learn, That idle, negligent, and unfaithful pastors, are no pastors in the sight of God, and in the account of Christ: Jesus had compassion on the multitude, because they were as sheep having no shepherd.
Mar 6:30. The apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus Namely, at, or quickly after the time of the awful event of the Baptists death, related above; and told him all things, &c. Recounted to him; both what miracles they had done In his name and by his power; and what doctrine they had taught According to his direction. And he said, Come ye yourselves apart, &c. Come with me into the neighbouring desert; and rest a while After the fatigue of your journey, and let us endeavour to improve this awful dispensation by suitable meditations. For there were many coming and going, &c. To and from the public place in which they then were; and they had no leisure so much as to eat Namely, without interruption. And much less had they leisure for religious retirement and recollection. And they departed into a desert place privately Across a creek of the lake; and the people Who had been attending on his ministry; saw them departing, and many knew him
Though he was at some distance; and observing how he steered his course, and guessing right as to the place at which he intended to land, they ran afoot thither out of all cities By which they passed, thereby increasing their numbers continually. And with such eagerness did they pursue their journey, that they outwent them that had taken ship, and getting round to the shore where he was to land, they stood ready there to receive him in a large body. And Jesus, when he came out Of the ship; seeing much people Collected together, and considering what pains they had taken to meet him there, and the strong desire which they had thus manifested to receive religious instruction; and reflecting, likewise, how sadly they were neglected by those who ought to have been their spiritual guides; and how they were forced to wander from place to place, as sheep having no shepherd To feed and take care of them; he was moved with such compassion toward them That though he had come thither for retirement, he neither dismissed nor forsook them, but, on the contrary, receiving them in a most kind and condescending manner, began, immediately, to teach them many things Namely, concerning the kingdom of God, Luk 9:11; healing also as many sick as were brought to him.
LXIII.
FIRST WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD’S TERRITORY AND RETURN.
(Spring, A. D. 29.)
Subdivision A.
RETURN OF THE TWELVE AND RETIREMENT
TO THE EAST SHORE OF GALILEE.
aMATT. XIV. 13; bMARK VI. 30-32; cLUKE IX. 10; dJOHN VI. 1.
b30 And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; cwhen they were returned, band they told {cdeclared unto} bhim all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught. [They had fulfilled the mission on which Jesus had sent them, and on returning each pair made to him a full report of their work.] 31 And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place [an uninhabited place], and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. [Need of rest was one reason for retiring to the thinly settled shores east of the lake. Matthew proceeds to give us another reason for his retiring.] a13 Now d1 After these things awhen Jesus heard it [Heard about John’s death. The excitement caused by this event, and the efforts to use Jesus as a leader in revolt, as indicated at the close of the last section, constituted another reason why Jesus should withdraw from the multitude], che took them [the apostles], and withdrew athence capart b32 And they went away in the {aa} boat, dto the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. cto a city called Bethsaida. bto a desert place apart. [They sailed to the northeastern shore of the lake to a plain lying near the city of Bethsaida Julius.] [374]
[FFG 374]
THE TWELVE RETURN
Mar 6:30-44. And the apostles come together to Jesus, and proclaim to Him all things, even so many things as they did, and so many things as they taught. He said to them, Come ye aside into an uninhabited place, and rest a little while. For there were many going and coming, and they had not even opportunity to eat. Luk 9:10 : And the apostles, returning, related to Him so many things as they did. Our Savior at this time is at Capernaum, His home, on the northern coast of the Galilean Sea. These six evangelistic bands have traveled with wonderful expedition, pressing the work with indefatigable perseverance throughout Galilee and Judea. It seems that the whole country have been wonderfully disturbed by this extraordinary activity. Of course, as it is here specified, Jesus had been preaching incessantly all this time, thus making seven distinct centers of evangelization. Such has been the effect on the masses of population that, when the apostles all return from these six evangelistic fields, thronging multitudes tread on their heels; so eager to hear the Word, get saved and healed, that they actually deprive them of all leisure, so they have not even time to eat. Now we see Jesus suggests to them to leave the cities and villages, and seek a lonely retreat in the wilderness, where they can take a rest, recuperating their exhausted nervous energies, voices, brains, and reviving their entire physical organism, preparatory for still more efficient work. This we should all diligently heed. Many valuable Christian workers break down prematurely because they do not heed this admonition of the Great Teacher.
Mar 6:30-44. The Feeding of the Multitude.Mk. regards the disciples need of rest after their missionary labours as the occasion for retirement. The hostility of Herod may also have contributed to the decision to withdraw to a desert place. The pressure of the public on the time and energies of the disciple-band is, however, put in the foreground. The eagerness of the crowd defeats the purpose of Jesus. Though He has withdrawn to avoid them. He goes forth to welcome them. To Him they seem like the shepherdless flock described in Ezekiel 34. Their political and religious leaders are worthless, and their first need is teaching. Jesus is touched by the crowds half-unconscious search for leadership. Mk. preserves (Mar 6:34) his tantalizing silence as to the content of Jesus teaching. He is more interested in the care of Jesus for mens physical hunger than in His concern for their spiritual and political dangers. For us the fact that Jesus was moved by compassion to meet both physical and spiritual needs is of great significance. But the story, as it stands, is not easy of acceptance. The resort to miracle here seems to conflict with the story of the first Temptation. Is there adequate occasion for the miracle? And yet a miracle it clearly is to Mk., not a last supper with the crowd nor a sacramental meal. The breaking of the bread is simply Jewish custom, not a peculiar feature of the Last Supper, while the lifting of the eyes to heaven comes into liturgical use from the story and not vice versa (see HNT and Well-hausen). Is it possible that Strauss (Life of Jesus, 1846 ed., i. 80, ii. 422) was justified in tracing the miraculous element in this story to the influence of antecedent expectations regarding the Messiah, such as are reflected in Joh 6:31? Or has 2Ki 4:42-44 influenced the passage?
Two points need to be borne in mind. First, we must remember the attitude of Jesus towards hunger as revealed in the companion narrative (Mar 8:2), and in such passages as Mar 5:43, Mat 6:11; Mat 25:35. Is it going too far to say that Jesus was peculiarly sensitive to the evil of physical hunger? If so, the conflict with the story of the Temptation may be more apparent than real. He might have satisfied the needs of others by miracle, though He refused to make bread for Himself. Secondly, the Jews and the first Christians did not rigidly distinguish between the world of nature and the world of men. We, to-day, are inclined to believe in miraculous changes where human will and faith directly operate, and rigidly to limit the sphere of such changes. The first Christians were clearly of opinion that their Master, who could heal diseases, could also control nature. They held that famine could not baffle Jesus. This conviction needs to be pondered.
Mar 6:37. The reference to 200 pennyworth of bread is found in John 6, where the green grass is also mentioned. These coincidences deserve study. Does Jn. depend on Mk. or does he independently endorse Mk.? A penny was a labourers daily wage. The whole sum might be reckoned at about 50 of our money. The green grass suggests spring, but does not allow any final deduction as to the time of year.
Mar 6:40. Mk. here uses a curious phrase comparing the companies to garden-beds. The resemblance lies in form, not in colour, since the word refers to vegetables rather than flowers.
30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31 And he said 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. 32 And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33 And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.
The party of the Lord was weary and hungry so Christ attempted to take them away for a break. The apostles and the Lord purposed to get away from it all but the people who followed wanted further teaching. This is not uncommon in ministry. The weary pastor attempts to get away from the ministry for a moment and it just follows along behind him. Many pastors just leave town and today probably need to leave their cell phone at home. A break is needed and the minister should never feel guilty about taking one now and then if needed. Some do not need it for long periods while others may need it more often.
The point of this section is more along the lines communicated by “was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.” He had compassion on those that needed teaching. Oh pastor how you need to wake up to the need of your people. Sheep need food, not the Gospel. Church is for the sheep not the wolves and outsiders.
Many pastors think that the church assembly is where the lost should be saved. Wake up and look at the Bible you preach from. The church is made up of believers and you are there to edify them, not save all the lost that ought not be there. Use your precious little time with your congregation to teach them the Word, not the feel good fluff of modern day preachers.Teach them doctrine, get your theology books out and preach it – that is food, that is meat, that is what your people need. They will starve with the feel good stuff of sermons given in many churches today.
Christians are not stupid and pastors need to wake up to that fact. Many of my generation have stopped going to church due to the terrible music, the pride in talent, and the lack of preaching from the Word. If those are not enough they see the hypocrisy in the leadership that are protecting their jobs rather than ministering to their people. There is little fellowship to be found in churches unless you belong to the in group, there are few activities for the poor and little to do unless you know the in crowd.
We visited a church a number of years ago that seemed rather fit to our needs. We attended the Sunday school class and were even more excited until they announced the months social activity. Bowling followed by pizza. We could barely feed ourselves much less go bowling and out for pizza. Without money there is no fellowship in many churches.
The church is where we fellowship, fast, pray and are built up in the faith. How many churches can you name that fulfill those standards. Is it any wonder the older generation sits home watching some preacher on TV or just stay home and look into the Word together?
A pastor awhile back mentioned church discipline and the putting out of the church of one that was in public sin. As we left church I asked my wife just what there was in “Church” today that would be missed by one under discipline. What thing missed would drive them back to the church? I have yet to find an answer. Indeed, I have jotted down a number of reasons why the church is rather irrelevant in our society. If you do not like flouncy music, fluff and stuff from the pulpit and cold shoulders from the people why bother going?
3. The return of the Twelve 6:30 (cf. Luke 9:10)
This verse marks the conclusion of the apostolic mission of the Twelve that the writer introduced in Mar 6:7-13. With that phase of Jesus’ training of the Twelve completed, He moved on to the next stage.
This is the only time Mark called the Twelve "apostles" (Gr. apostoloi, lit. sent ones). There is not good textual evidence for its presence in Mar 3:14. The 12 apostles now returned to the One who had sent them out and reported to Him regarding what had transpired. Mark used "apostles" in the general sense of authorized representatives or agents (cf. Act 14:14; et al.) rather than as a technical title (cf. Eph 2:20; et al.).
"This agent operates in the name of the one having given the authorization. Therefore, the term ’apostles’ and their action of reporting to Jesus demonstrate the Twelve’s dependent relationship to Jesus. Their mission was an extension of his mission." [Note: Guelich, pp. 338-39.]
These men, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, later became the official apostles. They evidently presented their report to Jesus somewhere in Galilee, possibly near Capernaum.
CHAPTER 6:30-46 (Mar 6:30-46)
BREAD IN THE DESERT
“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 awhile. 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. And straightway He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself sendeth the multitude away. And after He had taken leave of them He departed into the mountain to pray.” Mar 6:30-46 (R.V.)
THE apostles, now first called by that name, because now first these “Messengers” had carried the message of their Lord, returned and told Him all, the miracles they had performed, and whatever they had taught. From the latter clause it is plain that to preach “that men should repent,” involved arguments, motives, promises, and perhaps threatenings which rendered it no meager announcement. It is in truth a demand which involves free will and responsibility as its bases, and has hell or heaven for the result of disobedience or compliance. Into what controversies may it have led these first preachers of Jesus! All was now submitted to the judgment of their Master. And happy are they still who do not shrink from the healing pain of bringing all their actions and words to Him, and hearkening what the Lord will speak.
Upon the whole, they brought a record of success. And around Him also were so many coming and going that they had no leisure so much as to eat. Whereupon Jesus draws them aside to rest awhile. For the balance must never be forgotten between the outer and the inner life. The Lord Himself spent the following night in prayer, until He saw the distress of His disciples, and came to them upon the waves. And the time was at hand when they, who now rejoiced that the devils were subject unto them, should learn by sore humiliation and defeat that this kind goeth not forth except by prayer. We may be certain that it was not bodily repose alone that Jesus desired for His flushed and excited ambassadors, in the hour of their success. And yet bodily repose also at such a time is healing, and in the very pause, the silence, the cessation of the rush, pressure, and excitement of every conspicuous career, there is an opportunity and even a suggestion of calm and humble recollection of the soul. Accordingly they crossed in the boat to some quiet spot, open and unreclaimed, but very far from such dreariness as the mention of a desert suggests to us. But the people saw Him, and watched His course, while outrunning Him along the coast, and their numbers were augmented from every town as they poured through it, until He came forth and saw a great multitude, and knew that His quest of solitude was baffled. Few things are more trying than the world’s remorseless intrusion upon one’s privacy and subversions of plans which one has laid, not for himself alone. But Jesus was as thoughtful for the multitude as He had just shown Himself to be for His disciples. Not to petulance but to compassion did their urgency excite Him; for as they streamed across the wilderness, far from believing upon Him, but yet conscious of sore need, unsatisfied with the doctrine of their professional teachers, and just bereaved of the Baptist, they seemed in the desert like sheep that had no shepherd. And He patiently taught them many things.
Nor was He careful only for their souls. We have now reached that remarkable miracle which alone is related by all the four Evangelists. And the narratives, while each has its individual and peculiar points, corroborate each other very strikingly. All four mention the same kind of basket, quite different from what appears in the feeding of the four thousand. St. John alone tells us that it was the season of the Passover, the middle of the Galilean spring-time; but yet this agrees exactly with St. Mark’s allusion to the “green grass” which summer has not yet dried up. All four have recorded that Jesus “blessed” or “gave thanks,” and three of them that He looked up to heaven while doing so. What was there so remarkable, so intense or pathetic in His expression, that it would have won this three-fold celebration? If we remember the symbolical meaning of what He did, and that as His hands were laid upon the bread which He would break, so His own body should soon be broken for the relief of the hunger of the world, how can we doubt that absolute self-devotion, infinite love, and pathetic resignation were in the wonderful look, which never could be forgotten?
There could have been but few women and children among the multitudes who “outran Jesus,” and these few would certainly have been trodden down if a rush of strong and hungry men for bread had taken place. Therefore St. John mentions that while Jesus bade “the people” to be seated, it was the men who were actually arranged (Joh 6:10 R.V.). Groups of fifty were easy to keep in order, and a hundred of these were easily counted. And thus it comes to pass that we know that there were five thousand men, while the women and children remained unreckoned, as St. Matthew asserts, and St. Mark implies. This is a kind of harmony which we do not find in two versions of any legend. Nor could any legendary impulse have imagined the remarkable injunction, which impressed all four Evangelists, to be frugal when it would seem that the utmost lavishness was pardonable. They were not indeed bidden to gather up fragments left behind upon the ground, for thrift is not meanness; but the “broken pieces” which our Lord had provided over and above should not be lost. “This union of economy with creative power, ” said Olshousen, “could never have been invented, and yet Nature, that mirror of the Divine perfections, exhibits the same combination of boundless munificence with truest frugality.” And Godet adds the excellent remark, that “a gift so obtained was not to be squandered.”
There is one apparent discord to set against these remarkable harmonies, and it will at least serve to show that they are not calculated and artificial.
St. John represents Jesus as the first to ask Philip, Whence are we to buy bread? whereas the others represent the Twelve as urging upon Him the need to dismiss the multitude, at so late an hour, from a place so ill provided. The inconsistency is only an apparent one. It was early in the day, and upon “seeing a great company come unto Him,” that Jesus questioned Philip, who might have remembered an Old Testament precedent, when Elisha said “Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor said, What? shall I set this before an hundred men? He said, again…they shall both eat and shall also leave thereof.” But the faith of Philip did not respond, and if any hope of a miracle were excited, it faded as time passed over. Hours later, when the day was far spent, the Twelve, now perhaps excited by Philip’s misgiving, and repeating his calculation about the two hundred pence, urge Jesus to dismiss the multitude. They took no action until “the time was already past,” but Jesus saw the end from the beginning. And surely the issue taught them not to distrust their Master’s power. Now the same power is for ever with the Church; and our heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of food and raiment.
Even in the working of a miracle, the scantiest means vouchsafed by Providence are not despised. Jesus takes the barley-loaves and the fishes, and so teaches all men that true faith is remote indeed from the fanaticism which neglect any resources brought within the reach of our study and our toil. And to show how really these materials were employed, the broken pieces which they gathered are expressly said to have been composed of the barley-loaves and of the fish.
Indeed it must be remarked that in no miracle of the Gospel did Jesus actually create. He makes no new members of the body, but restores old useless ones. “And so, without a substratum to work upon He creates neither bread nor wine.” To do this would not have been a whit more difficult, but it would have expressed less aptly His mission, which was not to create a new system of things, but to renew the old, to recover the lost sheep, and to heal the sick at heart.
Every circumstance of this miracle is precious. That vigilant care for the weak which made the people sit down in groups, and await their turn to be supplied, is a fine example of the practical eye for details which was never, before or since, so perfectly united with profound thought, insight into the mind of God and the wants of the human race.
The words, Give ye them to eat, may serve as an eternal rebuke to the helplessness of the Church, face to face with a starving world, and regarding her own scanty resources with dismay. In the presence of heathenism, of dissolute cities, and of semi-pagan peasantries, she is ever looking wistfully to some costly far-off supply. And her Master is ever bidding her believe that the few loaves and fishes in her hand, if blessed and distributed by Him, will satisfy the famine of mankind.
For in truth He is Himself this bread. All that the Gospel of St. John explains, underlies the narratives of the four. And shame on us, with Christ given to us to feed and strengthen us, if we think our resources scanty, if we grudge to share them with mankind, if we let our thoughts wander away to the various palliatives for human misery and salves for human anguish, which from time to time gain the credence of an hour; if we send the hungry to the country and villages round about, when Christ the dispenser of the Bread of souls, for ever present in His Church, is saying, They need not depart, give ye them to eat.
The skeptical explanations of this narrative are exquisitely ludicrous. One tells how, finding themselves in a desert, “thanks to their extreme frugality they were able to exist, and this was naturally” (what, naturally?) “regarded as a miracle.” This is called the legendary explanation, and every one can judge for himself how much it succeeds in explaining to him. Another tells us that Jesus being greater than Moses, it was felt that He must have outstripped him in miraculous power. And so the belief grew up that as Moses fed a nation during forty years, with angels’ food, He, to exceed this, must have bestowed upon five thousand men one meal of barley bread.
This is called the mythical explanation, and the credulity which accepts it must not despise Christians, who only believe their Bibles.
Jesus had called away His followers to rest. The multitude which beheld this miracle was full passionate hate against the tyrant, upon whose hands the blood of the Baptist was still warm. All they wanted was a leader. And now they would fain have taken Jesus by force to thrust this perilous honor upon Him. Therefore He sent away His disciples first, that ambition and hope might not agitate and secularize their minds; and when He had dismissed the multitude He Himself ascended the neighboring mountain, to cool His frame with the pure breezes, and to refresh His Holy Spirit by communion with His Father. Prayer was natural to Jesus; but think how much more needful is it to us. And yet perhaps we have never taken one hour from sleep for God.
See Chap. IV “The Two Storms.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
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Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
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Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
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Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
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Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary