Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 6:12
When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
12. Gather up the fragments ] S. John alone tells of this command, though the others tell us that the fragments were gathered up. It has been noticed as a strong mark of truth, most unlikely to have been invented by the writer of a fiction. We do not find the owner of Fortunatus’ purse careful against extravagance. How improbable, from a human point of view, that one who could multiply food at will should give directions about saving fragments!
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gather up the fragments – This command is omitted by the other evangelists. It shows the care of Jesus that there should be no waste. Though he had power to provide any quantity of food, yet he has here taught us that the bounties of Providence are not to be squandered. In all things the Saviour set us an example of frugality, though he had an infinite supply at his disposal; he was himself economical, though he was Lord of all. If he was thus saving, it becomes us dependent creatures not to waste the bounties of a beneficent Providence. And it especially becomes the rich not to squander the bounties of Providence. They often feel that they are rich. They have enough. They have no fear of want, and they do not feel the necessity of studying economy. Yet let them remember that what they have is the gift of God – just as certainly as the loaves and fishes created by the Saviour were his gift. It is not given them to waste, nor to spend in riot, nor to be the means of injuring their health or of shortening life. It is given to sustain life, to excite gratitude, to fit for the active service of God. Everything should be applied to its appropriate end, and nothing should be squandered or lost.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 6:12-13
Gather up the fragments
Sermon for the New Year
The natural thought would be–let the fragments lie; a divine munificence can again be equal to a similar emergency; henceforth we will be in sublime disdain of fragments–a niggardly economy.
But Christ prevents any such bad generalization from the abundance of His great gifts, by the command, gather up the fragments.
I. Here then emerges the great law that GOD IS ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE PARTICULAR ABOUT FRAGMENTS. This law God Himself obeys. God is particular about fragments in
1. Keeping them. You cannot destroy matter.
2. In using them. The little things at the basis of nature.
3. In adorning them. You shall find even a Divine lavishing of adornment in things so minute that only a microscope can reveal them.
II. We are confronted by a new year. How may we make it a happy one? By becoming ourselves OBEDIENT TO THE GREAT LAW WHICH GOD OBEYS.
1. Seize fragments of time for self-culture and in the consciousness of growth find the new year a happy one. Emerson says, One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the last day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is doomsday.
2. Seize fragments of chance for doing good, and in that consciousness find the year a happy one. This was said by a member of one of the Protestant churches in Paris: For you must know it is a rule in our church that when one brother has been converted he must go and fetch another brother; and when a sister has been converted, she must go and fetch another sister. That is the way 120 of us have been brought from atheism and Popery to simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you would but feel that must go and fetch another–you would find for yourself a radiant year.
3. Seize fragments of happiness as they lie about you day by day. Happiness does not come so much in nuggets as in the minuter golden particles. Do not despise them. Look for the securing of the little happiness.
4. If you have not done it yet, seize the fragment of time left you to make your peace with God through Jesus Christ. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)
Fragments
There are certain matters in society that may be called fragments, certain customs that stand isolated and yet are very closely connected with religion.
I. HUMANITY TO ANIMALS. All animals must live, and are entitled to consideration. They have rights of their own.
1. The insect world. Why should we destroy a spider for killing a fly when we organize shambles for the sake of slaughtering the animals on which we live? There are many insects that we are not obliged to preserve, but which we need not go out of our way to destroy wholesale. They have just one day of existence, and it is a pity to abridge it.
2. Those animals that stand nearest man have been comparatively left to his passions or selfishness. It is not right that they should be transported and slaughtered without the least care for their suffering.
3. The wholesale destruction of birds for the personal adornment of ladies is not only inhuman but is wasteful. The development of insects is so enormous that if they were not reduced by birds it would be fatal to our wheatfields and gardens.
II. THE LAW OF HUMANITY TOWARDS SUBORDINATES IN INDUSTRY. is more than a fragment, it is half a loaf.
1. The law of sympathy should regulate the law of wages as well as the law of profit. Men have no right to pay their employees at starvation rates, nor in the cheapest currency.
2. Times of payment ought to be considered and wages paid not on Saturday, when there is every temptation to spend them in the public house, but on Monday.
3. Ought not a portion of every mans wages to be secured to his wife, as his partner and the family provider, by the state?
4. According to the spirit of the gospel whoever employs men becomes responsible, as Gods overseer, for their morals and instruction and happiness. We are our brothers keepers, particularly where for our profit they are led into circumstances of such severe temptation as exist in large houses of business.
5. When young women are compelled to stand all the day it is time the law, in the interest of future generations, stepped in. (H. W. Beecher.)
Fragments or, broken pieces?
(see R.V.):–The general notion, I suppose, is that the fragments are the crumbs that fell from each mans hands as he ate, and the picture before the imagination of the ordinary reader is that of the apostles carefully collecting the debris of the meal from the grass where it had dropped. But the true notion is that the broken pieces which remain over are the unused portions into which our Lords miracle-working hand had broken the bread, and the true picture is that of the apostles carefully putting away in store for future use the abundant provision which their Lord had made, beyond the needs of the hungry thousands. And that conception of the command teaches far more beautiful and deeper lessons than the other.
I. We have that thought to which I have already referred as more strikingly brought out by the slight alteration of translation, which, by the use of broken pieces, suggests the connection with Christs breaking the loaves and fishes. We are taught to think of THE LARGE SURPLUS IN CHRISTS GIFTS OVER AND ABOVE OUR NEED. Whom He feeds He feasts. His gifts answer our need, and over-answer it, for He is able to do exceeding abundantly above that which we ask or think, and neither our conceptions, nor our petitions, nor our present powers of receiving, are the real limits of the illimitable grace that is laid up for us in Christ, and which, potentially, we have each of us in our hands whenever we lay our hands on Him.
II. Then there is another very simple lesson, which I draw. This command suggests for us CHRISTS THRIFT (if I may use the word) IN THE EMPLOYMENT OF HIS MIRACULOUS POWER. Christ multiplies the bread, and yet each of the apostles has to take a basket, probably some kind of woven wicker-work article which they would carry for holding their little necessaries in their peregrinations; each apostle has to take his basket, and, perhaps emptying it of some of their humble apparel, to fill it with these bits of bread; for Christ was not going to work miracles where mens thrift and prudence could be employed. Nor does He do so now. We live by faith, and our dependence on Him can never be too absolute. Only laziness sometimes dresses itself in the garb and speaks with the tongue of faith, and pretends to be trustful when it is only slothfuh Why criest thou unto Me? said God to Moses, speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. True faith sets us to work. It is not to be perverted into idle and false depending upon Him to work for us, when, by the use of our own ten fingers and our own brains, guided and strengthened by His working in us, we can do the work that is set before us.
III. Still further, there is another lesson here. Not only does the injunction show us Christs thrift in the employment of the supernatural, but it teaches us our duty of THRIFT AND CARE IN THE USE OF THE SPIRITUAL GRACE BESTOWED UPON US. Christian men I be watchful stewards of that great gift of a living Christ, the food of your souls, that has been by miracle bestowed Upon you. Such gathering together for future need of the unused residue of grace may be accomplished by three ways.
1. There must be a diligent use of the grace given. See that you use to the very full, in the measure of your present power of absorbing and your present need, the gift bestowed upon you. Be sure that you take in as much of Christ as you can contain before you begin to think of what to do with the overplus. If we are not careful to take what we can and to use what we need of Christ, there is little chance of our being faithful stewards of the surplus. The water in a mill-stream runs over the trough in great abundance when the wheel is not working, and one reason why so many Christians seem to have so much more given to them in Christ than they need is because they are doing no work to use up the gift.
2. A second essential to such stewardship is the careful guarding of the grace given from whatever would injure it. Let not worldliness, business, care of the world, the sorrows of life, its joys, duties, anxieties, or pleasures–let not these so come into your hearts that they will elbow Christ out of your hearts, and dull your appetite for the True Bread that came down from heaven.
3. And, lastly, not only by use and by careful guarding, but also by earnest desire for larger gifts of the Christ who is large beyond all measure, shall we receive more and more of His sweetness and His preciousness into our hearts, and of His beauty and glory into our transfigured characters. The basket that we carry, this recipient heart of ours, is elastic. It can stretch to hold any amount that you like to put into it. The desire for more of Christs grace will stretch its capacity, and as its capacity increases the inflowing gift greatens, and a larger Christ fills the larger room of my poor heart.
IV. Finally, A SOLEMN WARNING IS IMPLIED IN THIS COMMAND, AND ITS REASON THAT NOTHING BE LOST. Then there is a possibility of losing the gift that is freely given to us. We may waste the bread, and so, sometime or other when we are hungry, awake to the consciousness that it has dropped out of our slack hands. The abundance of Christs grace may, so far as you are profited or enriched by it, be like the unclaimed millions of money which nobody asks for and that is of use to no living soul. You may be paupers while all Gods riches in glory are at your disposal, and starving while baskets full of bread broken for us by Christ lie unused at our sides. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Gather up the fragments
I. FRAGMENTS OF TRUTH. Precious fragments! with which we need not quarrel because fragmentary, for we are taught by degrees, we are fed as able to bear it. No one could reasonably complain of crumbs that they were not bread, because not each of them a whole loaf. The smallest portions of Gods word are, notwithstanding their smallness, His word, and to be valued as such–not one to be lost. Precious fragments! concerning which we need not murmur, because we have the fatigue of gathering. If any will not work neither shall he eat,
II. FRAGMENTS OF TIME. Now there are two reasons which should more especially incite us to endeavour to redeem time.
1. We have need to treasure up its very minutes, for they are the fragments of a gift which God bestows.
2. For every hour of it He will call upon us to render an account, that He may receive His own with usury.
3. And there is another reason which ought to influence us, but which is often overlooked, and that is, that in course of time we become the result of the time we live. Time leaves its mark upon us; not merely those outward marks of change and scars of decay, but those still more indelible features and lineaments of character which are constantly stamping us for eternity, and which give force to the assertion that time has a quality, as it has a quantity. Time improved moulds and shapes the mind after the fashion of these improvements.
III. Again (as connected with the thought of time, its fragments, its waste, and its use), there is also the consideration that there are certain MEANS OF GRACE, which we may regard in the light of fragments, and which have to be carefully gathered. Gather up the fragments that remain, value and employ the holy seasons which may yet be granted you, and for which you will have to render an account. It is the same with regard to private prayer. What use have we made of the means of grace? I remember to have read a book entitled A Dying Mans Regrets, and he was a very good and holy man, singularly devoted to the service of his God, and yet what did he say? These are his words, Ah! if I were to return to life, I would, with the help of God, and in distrust of myself, give much more time to prayer than I have hitherto done. I would reckon much more upon the effect of that than on my own labour, which, however much it is our duty never to neglect, yet has no strength except so far as it is animated by prayer. I would especially strive to obtain in my prayers that fervour of the Holy Spirit which is not learnt in a day, but is the fruit of a long, and often a painful apprenticeship. Oh my friends (he added, raising himself with energy on his sick bed) lay hold of the opportunity and redeem it, cultivate new habits of prayer. Bring into prayer, with a spirit of fervour, a spirit also of order and of method that will increase its power, as it increases the power of all human things, and co-operated with the Divine agency itself.
IV. Lastly, there are the ACTS OF DUTY that we are to perform, and these also often present themselves to us in very small fragments. The lives of most of us are made up of such fragments. It is not a great thing that is required of us. It is the trivial round, the common task, that is,.for the most part, the calling in which we are to abide, and therein to abide with God. We are often apt to despise common things because they are so common, forgetting that we might lift them to a much higher dignity, if we but infused into them a nobler principle, doing them as in Gods sight, by Gods help, and to Gods glory. (J. M. Nisbet.)
Fragments of instruction
(Sermon to the Young):–There are ninny fragments of truth, any one of which, perhaps, is not large enough for a whole discourse, but which ought not to be wholly lost. There are a hundred small things any one of which does not seem to be of much importance compared with the great Gospel themes, but which, taken together, amount to a great deal, e.g
I. EVERY ONE SHOULD BE WILLING TO CREEP BEFORE HE WALKS. There is hardly a young man that goes out from his fathers house that who does not want money before he earns it. Who does not want a reputation for being smart before he is smart? But yea need not be ashamed because you do not know more than those of your age are expected to know; above all you need not be ashamed of frugality. Do not let your pride be hurt by living within your means. Make two things a matter of pride. 1, That you will not live one farthing in debt.
2. That you will be the richer if only by one shilling at the end of the year than you were at the beginning.
II. EVERY ONE SHOULD EDUCATE HIMSELF. The school, books, teachers, give a man a chance, but after all he is his own schoolmaster.
1. A handworker ought not to be content with handwork, but should teach his band to think as well.
2. Every man ought to have some general knowledge
(1) of his own body and mind;
(2) of the structure of the earth;
(3) of the history, geography, and policy of his own country and of others;
(4) of the sciences.
3. But all education does not come from reading.
(1) God gave men eyes that they might see; and yet very few people see anything.
(2) What was your tongue put into your head for but to inquire with? Learn the art of asking questions.
III. BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. Pick your company from those who are superior to you and can teach you something. Life will go ill with you if you look down for your company.
IV. AIM AT REFINEMENT. This belongs to no place or class. You ought to be refined, not because of your trade, but because of yourself. A mechanic may be a gentleman if he likes.
V. CULTIVATE CHIVALRY. Always take the side of the weak.
VI. DO NOT DESPISE ETIQUETTE. Life is made a great deal pleasanter and intercourse a great deal smoother when men observe the little forms of propriety in life.
VII. RESPECT womanhood. No matter how a woman looks, she is of the same sex as your mother and sister or wife and daughter.
VIII. CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF UNIFORM GENEROSITY IN SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. Be on the look out to make others happy. (J. M. Nisbet.)
The fragments that remain
Every dispensation of Providence is a kind of miracle. We must make the most of it.
I. EVERY POSITION IN LIFE may be made great or little, as we desire to make the most or the least of it. To do the necessary duties of each station is easy enough, but to gather up all its outlying opportunities; to be ready to lend a helping hand here or give a kind word of counsel there; to fill our place in life instead of leaving it half empty; to be in our work entirely make all the difference between a useful and a useless man.
II. We may have A SIGNAL VISITATION OF JOY OR SORROW. It is possible to drive it out of our thoughts and cut off all its consequences; but it is better to gather up the fragments and see what it has taught us of our strength or weakness, God and our soul.
III. We may have known A NOBLE CHARACTER AND EXAMPLE. It has gone from us. Shall we blot it out of our remembrance or gather up the fragments, the sayings, doings, memories that may cheer, sustain, guide and warn.
IV. Consider our feelings of RELIGION ITSELF. Few and far between may be our prayers and thoughts of serious things; but do not despise what you have. One verse from the Bible may be enough to sustain us in sore temptations; one prayer may stick closer to us than a brother; one fixed determination to do right may be a rallying point round which our whole better nature may form itself. True we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs of our heavenly Fathers table; but His property is always to have mercy, and will bless and own our humbled efforts. (Dean Stanley.)
The fragments that remain
I. Fragments of TIME. Myriads waste hours, days, years, and find themselves beggars at death.
II. Fragments of INFLUENCE. No man liveth unto himself. It may be unconsciously exercised; like magnetism it never slumbers, like gravitation it knows no Sabbath. It is ever drawing to the Cross or to ruin.
III. Fragments of CONSCIENCE. Our sins weaken and scatter the power Divine. Some benumb its energy, others flatter it by deceit.
IV. Fragments of FAITH. Christ its faintest beams, they lead to heaven.
V. Fragments of LOVE. Gather up every fragment of retiring lingering affection.
VI. Fragments of CONSECRATION. As the needle always turns to the pole, so our life should centre in God. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
Love enriches itself
This which remained over must have immensely exceeded in bulk and quantity the original stock; and we thus have a visible symbol of that love which exhausts not itself by loving, but after the most prodigal outgoings upon others abides itself far richer than it would else have done; of the multiplying which there always is in a true dispensing, of the increasing which may go along with a scattering. (Archbishop Trench.)
Wastefulness
Having by the miracle taught a lesson of beneficence, Christ now inculcates economy.
I. THE SIN OF WASTEFULNESS.
1. It breaks the law which bids us use the things of this world as not abusing them.
2. It is shameful ingratitude to our Father in heaven to waste that daily bread given to us in answer to prayer.
3. Every shilling needlessly squandered is a diminution of our power to do good.
II. THE NATURE OF WASTEFULNESS. It is not confined to the destruction of the necessaries of life, but may fairly be extended to unprofitable consumption,
1. Fashion and vanity are great wasters.
2. Intemperance is waste
(1) Of bodily health.
(2) Of the means of saving others from starvation.
3. Luxury is waste because
(1) Frequently unnecessary.
(2) Encouraging extravagance in children.
III. HOW TO GUARD AGAINST WASTEFULNESS.
1. Not by niggardliness to the neglect of the duties of Christian hospitality, but in general by the rational enjoyment as against the perversion of the blessings of providence.
2. By everyone ruling well his own house, impressing servants with the sin, folly, and dishonesty of wastefulness.
3. By preventing what is perishable from being spoiled through carelessness.
4. By preventing a consumption of the fruits of the earth by overfeeding such animals as are kept chiefly for pleasure.
IV. THE BENEFITS OF FRUGALITY.
1. The cultivation of good habits; temperance, charity, etc.
2. Addition to the sum of human happiness. (J. Hewlett, D. D.)
Fragments not to be wasted
1. This is the command of the last gospel of the last Sunday of the Churchs year.
2. This command in its connection shows us the union of the vastness of Gods liberality with the minuteness of the accuracy of His economy. He provides you all things richly to enjoy, but He looks to see what you do with the cup of cold water. His are the cattle on a thousand hills,but a sparrow cannot fall without His notice.
3. The text may be applied to the use of
I. THINGS THAT CAN BE MEASURED BY MONEY.
II. CRUMBS OF TRUTH.
III. THE MEANS OF GRACE.
IV. SCANTY OPPORTUNITIES.
V. LITTLE DUTIES. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Divine avoidance of waste
Many things that appear useless have some hidden value. In jewellers shops every particle of filing is preserved for the assayer. Paper trimmings of large establishments become of value to the extent of thousands of pounds. In Copenhagen a hospital is supported by the money raised from cigar tips. The pieces of bread swept into the dust heap from the tables of England would, if saved and given to missions, double the means at present at their disposal.
I. NOTICE THE ECONOMY IN THE DIVINE ADMINISTRATION.
1. In nature there seems to be waste in great stretches of uncultivated ground, rocky ridges, unseen flowers, unfathomed depths; and in stellar regions there seems to be infinite waste of light and force. Why all this? Because there must be no appearance of niggardliness on the part of omnipotence. Yet no part of this lavishment is really waste. No atom is lost. All is used over and over again, as vapours, heat, sand, soil, etc.
2. In the world of thought there is no waste. From Copernicus, Tycho, Brake, Kepler, Newton, etc., men now gather power to gain further knowledge. Watts, and Stephenson, and Moore are only founders of inventions on which others build.
3. In the spiritual sphere, devotion, faithfulness, endurance, suffering, is not waste. John in prison, Stephen stoned, Christ crucified, are all incentives to fealty and love.
II. THE AIM IN THE DIVINE ECONOMY OF FRAGMENTS.
1. It is a benefit to man that he is required to gather. Christ could have created more bread, but it had not been good for the disciples to live on miracles. Eden could have been kept right, but it was better for man to keep it. Birds and animals are provided with clothing and food; man has to provide for himself because a higher being. Difficulties enable us to value things more.
2. Christ here warned men of the great losses that may attend trifling neglects: Ships sink by little leaks. Constant trifling wastes may ruin the best business.
3. He showed more power in the gathered fragments than in feeding the five thousand.
4. He taught the disciples His care for those whom others would despise. (Homiletic Magazine.)
No waste in Nature or Art
Nature is a rigid economist. In her household there is no waste. Everything is utilized to the utmost. The decay of rocks forms the soil of plants; and the decay of plants forms the mould in which future plants will grow. The sunlight and carbonic acid gas of past ages which seemed to be wasted upon a desert world, have been stored up in the form of coal for the benefit of man. The water that seems to be dissipated in the air descends in the dew and rain to refresh and quicken the earth. The matter that has served its purpose to one object goes by death and decomposition to form another object with a different purpose to serve. The materials which the animal kingdom receives from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms must be restored in order that they may be carefully circulated without diminution or waste over the whole earth. The gases that disappear in one form reappear in another. Forces are changed into their equivalents. Heat becomes motion, and motion heat. Nowhere is there any waste. In the ashes of every fire, in the decay of every plant, in the death and decomposition of every animal there is change, but not loss, death, but not waste. Everything is made the most of. The fragments of every product of nature are gathered up carefully and made to serve a useful purpose in a new form at natures feast. Amid all her lavishness nature is very saving. The brilliant hues of flowers which the poet and artist love are not mere idle adornments, but have a practical purpose to fulfil. The beauty and fragrance which we so much admire appear only when the fertilization of the plant by insect agency is necessary; and when this task is accomplished, she withdraws them, as we put out the lights and remove the garlands when the banquet is over. In the most economical manner Nature gets her new effects not by producing new objects, but by effecting a few modifications upon the old ones; and when she makes a blossom upon an apple-tree she simply shortens and alters what would otherwise have been a common leafy branch; all the parts of the inflorescence of the commonest wayside weed, the bract, the calyx, petal, stamen, pistil, and seed, in spite of all their differences of form and colour, are but successive transformations of the leaf. Thus our Lord teaches us by the common processes of Nature the lesson of economy. In the sphere of human art we find that there is a growing tendency to economize materials. The distinguishing characteristic of our arts and manufactures is economy. Substances which our forefathers threw away are now converted into useful and valuable products. We extract beautiful colours from the dung-heap, and delicious perfumes and essences from the offal of the streets. Every day we are finding out more and more that nothing is useless; that even the waste and refuse of our manufactures may be turned to profitable account, and made to minister to the necessities or the comfort of man. By the work of our own hands, therefore, our Lord is teaching us the lesson of economy. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The economics of Nature
Though the wealth of God is uncountable, He takes care even of His pence. There is no waste in his workshop. All things go towards the up-building of some newer life. Whatsoever you behold is but part of the great wheel of life everywhere returning. The cloud becomes the rain, the rain the river, the river the sea, the sea the cloud again. One of the glories of science is to abolish the word waste. Even the rag-picker has his function to perform, a higher one perhaps than yours. It is better to gather rags than to wear overmuch finery, because those rags go to the mill and become paper, on which the lovely and heroic deeds of men are inscribed. When death comes he will make mock of your fine clothes, and you will go your way to the rag heap. He who rescues rags is often more useful than he who wears them, and he might have written across him Gather up the fragments, etc. He gathers rags, bones, etc. He sorts them. Then they are sold and made into new materials, which in their turn come round again to rags. I take up a sheet of paper upon which to write, and I say of it, Rags of my youth come back again–come to clothe my soul this time. (George Dawson, M. A.)
Utilization ofwaste
An apprentice made a gorgeous cathedral window from the fragments of glass his master threw away. When David Cox used to sketch many things on paper and then cast them aside as not being up to his ideal, they were cast into the waste-paper basket or scattered on the floor. His old housekeeper, however, from reverence to her master, collected these torn and crumpled pieces. When the gifted artist died, and his effects were sold, the old housekeeper had her relics framed and realized some thousands of pounds, on which she was able to pass the rest of her days in comfort. There was unexpected value in fragments and scraps! Were we as careful to try and save time, or to seize opportunities of winning souls, what glory might not be brought to Christi (Homiletic Magazine.)
Twelve baskets
The word for basket in all the places where this miracle is mentioned (Mat 14:1-36; Mar 6:1-56.; Luk 9:1-62.; Joh 6:1-71), kophinos; in the two places where the later miracle of feeding is described, the word for basket is spuris. These two words indicate two different kinds of baskets. It was in a spuris basket that Paul was let down from the walls of Damascus; so that we can hardly err in recognizing in the spuris the large, deep, and round woven basket which is used for so many purposes in Palestine, and into which a man could, on occasion, be packed. The kophinos, on the other hand, which in the classics sometimes indicates a fish-basket, seems to be the light, flat woven tray-basket, which is in use among fisher-folk and others who had light burdens to carry. (S. S. Times.)
Nothing lost
I. In all the PROCESSES OF NATURE. In the ravages of oceans, the flow of rivers, the crumbling of mountains, nothing is lost; the drop of dew that trembles on leaf or flower, is but exhaled to fall anew, in summer thunder shower.
II. OF ALL THE COUNTLESS FORMS OF LIFE that have flourished and died since the beginning
The little drift of common dust,
By the March winds disturbed and tossed,
Though scattered by the fitful gust,
Is changed but never lost.
III. OF ANY WORK DONE FOR GOD, however humble. Sermons, prayers, contributions, etc. (Isa 55:11; Act 10:4; Mat 10:42). What an encouragement to parents, teachers, ministers, reformers. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. Gather up the fragments] “Great will be the punishment of those who waste the crumbs of food, scatter seed, and neglect the law.” Synops Sohar. Among the Jews the peah, or residue after a meal, was the property of the servitors.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When they were filled,…. Had not only eaten, but had made a full meal, and were thoroughly satisfied, having eaten as much as they could, or chose to eat:
he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain,
that nothing be lost; this he said, partly that the truth, reality, and greatness of the miracle might be clearly discerned; and partly, to teach frugality, that, in the midst of abundance, care be taken that nothing be lost of the good things which God gives; and which may be useful to other persons, or at another time.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
And when they were filled ( ). First aorist (effective) passive indicative of , old verb to fill in, to fill up, to fill completely. They were all satisfied. The Synoptics have like Joh 6:26 ().
Gather up (). Second aorist active imperative of , to gather together.
Broken pieces (). From , to break. Not crumbs or scraps on the ground, but pieces broken by Jesus (Mr 6:41) and not consumed.
Be lost (). Second aorist middle subjunctive of with in purpose clause. Only in John. There was to be no wastefulness in Christ’s munificence. The Jews had a custom of leaving something for those that served.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Fragments [] . From klaw, to break. Rev., broken pieces. That remain [] . Rev., remain over. Literally, exceed the necessary supply. Only John gives the Lord ‘s command to collect the fragments, and the reason for it, that nothing be lost.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “When they were filled,” (hos de eneplesthesan) “Now when they were filled,” had their physical hunger-need satisfied for the day, Php_4:19. When no one cared to eat any more.
2) “He said unto his disciples,” (legei tois mathetais autou) “He tells his disciples,” who had’ rebroken and passed the food to the people, directed them, in the midst of the multitude of glad people now filled with necessary food, Mat 6:33.
3) “Gather up the fragments that remain,” (sunagagete ta perisseusanta klasmata) “You all gather the leftover fragments, from which they had broken, from which more was left over than what they had before they shared with others, good food unused.
4) “That nothing be lost.” (hina me ti apoletai) “In order that not anything be lost.” The Father’s special bounty, special blessings, are not to be wasted. The abundance that was left over is a witness of the affluence, the superabundance, of the Giver, Luk 6:38.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(12) Gather up the fragments.Again St. John connects immediately with our Lord what the other Evangelists relate of the disciples. It is from this passage only that we know that the gathering of the fragments followed His express command.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And when they were filled he says to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost.” So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves which remained over to them that had eaten.’
The people, well over five thousand, ate their fill and then twelve baskets full of remains were gathered up at Jesus’ command. Presumably each of the twelve had a basket. John specifically states that what remained was the remains of the five barley loaves, just as he had previously stated that they ate of them and the fish as much as they would. Thus he saw the ‘sign’ as a miracle of great magnitude. Nothing gatherable would have been left of the fishes except traces on the loaves, nor would they remain edible. They were better left for the birds. The gathering up of the remnants is a reminder of the poverty of those days. They would be available for the people to take way with them and must not be wasted. Once again we are aware of the memories of an eye-witness.
We may well be intended to see the mention of the numbers as significant. Five was the number of the covenant, and twelve the number of the tribes of Israel. Thus the feast is a covenant feast, offering a place in God’s covenant to all true believers (Joh 6:35), and there is sufficient to spare for all Israel. As with the wine at Cana we are to see that there was an abundance of provision.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 6:12. Gather up the fragments Though Jesus was entirely free from worldly cares, and from all anxiety about futurity, he did not think it unworthy of him, on this occasion, to order his disciples to take care of the broken pieces of meat left by the multitude. The reason mentioned by him for their doing so, namely, that nothing might be lost, deserves our notice: for it shews us, that he to whom the earth and the fulness thereof belong, willeth every man to take due care of all the goods he possesses; and that if he wastes any thing by carelessness or profusion, he is guilty of sin; namely, the sin of despising the creatures of God, which by so admirable a contrivance as the frame of the world, God hath produced for his use. Wherefore, as by feeding so many, Jesus hath set us an example of liberality; so by taking care of the fragments, he hath taught us frugality; and by joining the two together, he has shewn us that charity and frugality ought always to go hand in hand; and that there is great difference between the truly liberal and the lavish man.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Ver. 12. When they were filled ] See Trapp on “ Mat 14:20 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
12. ] Peculiar to John. The command, one end of which was certainly to convince the disciples of the power which had wrought the miracle, is given by our Lord a moral bearing also. They collected the fragments for their own use , each in his , the ordinary furniture of the travelling Jew (“ quorum cophinus fnumque supellex ,” Juv [89] Sat. iii. 14), to carry his food, lest he should be polluted by that of the people through whose territory he passed: see note on Mat 15:32 . Observe, that here the 12 baskets are filled with the fragments of the bread alone: but in Mark, with those of the fishes also.
[89] Juvencus , 330
We must not altogether miss the reference to the twelve tribes of Israel, typifying the Church which was to be fed with the bread of life to the end of time.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
John
‘FRAGMENTS’ OR ‘BROKEN PIECES’
Joh 6:12
The Revised Version correctly makes a very slight, but a very significant change in the words of this verse. Instead of ‘fragments’ it reads ‘broken pieces.’ The change seems very small, but the effect of it is considerable. It helps our picture of the scene by correcting a very common misapprehension as to what it was which the Apostles are bid to gather up. The general notion, I suppose, is that the ‘fragments’ are the crumbs that fell from each man’s hands, as he ate, and the picture before the imagination of the ordinary reader is that of the Apostles’ carefully collecting the debris of the meal from the grass where it had dropped. But the true notion is that the ‘broken pieces which remain over’ are the unused portions into which our Lord’s miracle-working hand had broken the bread, and the true picture is that of the Apostles carefully putting away in store for future use the abundant provision which their Lord had made, beyond the needs of the hungry thousands. And that conception of the command teaches far more beautiful and deeper lessons than the other.
For if the common translation and notion be correct, all that is taught us, or at least what is principally taught us, is the duty of thrift and careful economy; whereas the other shows more clearly that what is taught us is that Jesus Christ always gets ready for His people something over and above the exact limits of their bare need at the moment, that He prepares for His poor and hungry dependants in royal fashion, leaving ever a wide margin of difference between what would be just enough to keep the life in them, and His liberal housekeeping. Further, we are taught a lesson of wise husbandry and economy in the use of that overplus of grace which Christ ministers, and are instructed that the laws of prudent thrift have as honoured a place in the management of spiritual as of temporal wealth. ‘Gather up,’ says our Lord, ‘the pieces which I broke, the large provision which I made for possible wants. My gifts are in excess of the requirements of the moment. Take care of them till you need them.’ That is a worthier interpretation of His command than one which merely sees in it an exhortation to thrifty taking care of the crumbs that fell from the lips of the hungry eaters.
Looking at this command, then, with this slight alteration of rendering, and consequent widening of scope, we may briefly try to gather up the lessons which it obviously suggests.
I. We have that thought, to which I have already referred, as more strikingly brought out by the slight alteration of translation, which, by the use of ‘broken pieces,’ suggests the connection with Christ’s breaking the loaves and fishes.
So that we are not inventing a fanciful interpretation of an incident not meant to have any meaning deeper than shows on the surface, when we say that the abundance far beyond what the eaters could make use of at the moment really represented the large surplus of inexhaustible resources and unused grace which is treasured for us all in Christ Jesus. Whom He feeds He feasts. His gifts answer our need, and over-answer it, for He is ‘able to do exceeding abundantly above that which we ask or think,’ and neither our conceptions, nor our petitions, nor our present powers of receiving, are the real limits of the illimitable grace that is laid up for us in Christ, and which, potentially, we have each of us in our hands whenever we lay our hands on Him.
Oh, dear friends! what you and I have ever had and felt of Christ’s power, sweetness, preciousness, and love is as nothing compared with the infinite depths of all those which lie in Him. The sea fills the little creeks along its shore, but it rolls in unfathomed depths, boundless to the horizon away out there in the mid-Atlantic. And all the present experience of all Christian people, of what Christ is, is like the experience of the first settlers in some great undiscovered continent; who timidly plant a little fringe of population round its edge and grow their scanty crops there, whilst the great prairies of miles and miles, with all their wealth and fertility, are lying untrodden and unknown in the heart of the untraversed continent. The most powerful telescope leaves nebulae unresolved, which, though they seem but a dim dust of light, are all ablaze with mighty suns. The ‘goodness’ which He has ‘wrought before the sons of men for them that fear’ Him is, as the Psalmist adoringly exclaims, wondrously ‘great,’ but still greater is that which the same verse of the Psalm celebrates-the goodness which He has ‘laid up for them that fear Him.’ The gold which is actually coined and passing from hand to hand, is but a fraction, a mere scale, as it were, off the surface of the great uncoined mass of bullion that lies stored in the vaults there. Christ is a great deal more than any man, or than all men, have yet found Him to be. ‘Gather up the broken pieces’; and see that nothing of that infinite preciousness of His be lost by us.
II. Then there is another very simple lesson which I draw. This command suggests for us Christ’s thrift if I may use the word in the employment of His miraculous power.
And so here Christ multiplies the bread, and yet each of the Apostles has to take a basket, probably some kind of woven wicker-work article which they would carry for holding their little necessaries in their peregrinations; each Apostle has to take his basket, and perhaps emptying it of some of his humble apparel, to fill it with these bits of bread; for Christ was not going to work miracles where men’s thrift and prudence could be employed.
Nor does He do so now. We live by faith, and our dependence on Him can never be too absolute. Only laziness sometimes dresses itself in the garb and speaks with the tongue of faith, and pretends to be truthful when it is only slothful. ‘Why criest thou unto Me?’ said God to Moses, ‘speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.’ True faith sets us to work. It is not to be perverted into idle and false depending upon Him to work for us, when by the use of our own ten fingers and our own brains, guided and strengthened by His working in us, we can do the work that is set before us.
III. Still further, there is another lesson here. Not only does the injunction show us Christ’s thrift in the employment of the supernatural, but it teaches us our duty of thrift and care in the use of the spiritual grace bestowed upon us.
The lesson of my text, which is most eminently brought out if we adopt the translation which I have referred to at the beginning of these remarks, is, then, just this: Christian men, be watchful stewards of that great gift of a living Christ, the food of your souls, that has been by miracle bestowed upon you. Such gathering together for future need of the unused residue of grace may be accomplished by three ways. First, there must be a diligent use of the grace given. See that you use to the very full, in the measure of your present power of absorbing and your present need, the gift bestowed upon you. Be sure that you take in as much of Christ as you can contain before you begin to think of what to do with the overplus. If we are not careful to take what we can, and to use what we need, of Christ, there is little chance of our being faithful stewards of the surplus. The water in a mill-stream runs over the trough in great abundance when the wheel is not working, and one reason why so many Christians seem to have so much more given to them in Christ than they need is because they are doing no work to use up the gift.
A second essential to such stewardship is the careful guarding of the grace given from whatever would injure it. Let not worldliness, business, cares of the world, the sorrows of life, its joys, duties, anxieties or pleasures-let not these so come into your hearts that they will elbow Christ out of your hearts, and dull your appetite for the true Bread that came down from heaven.
And lastly, not only by use and by careful guarding, but also by earnest desire for larger gifts of the Christ who is large beyond all measure, shall we receive more and more of His sweetness and His preciousness into our hearts, and of His beauty and glory into our transfigured characters. The basket that we carry, this recipient heart of ours, is elastic. It can stretch to hold any amount that you like to put into it. The desire for more of Christ’s grace will stretch its capacity, and as its capacity increases the inflowing gift greatens, and a larger Christ fills the larger room of my poor heart.
So the lesson is taught us of our prudence in the care and use of the grace bestowed on us, and we are bidden to cherish a happy confidence in the inexhaustible resources of Christ, and the continual gift in the future of even larger measures of grace, which are all ours already, given to us at the first reception of Him into our hearts, and only needing our faithfulness to be growingly ours in experience as they are ours from the first in germ.
IV. Finally, a solemn warning is implied in this command, and its reason ‘that nothing be lost.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
When = But when.
filled. Not the same word as in Joh 6:26.
remain = remain over, as in Joh 6:13.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
12.] Peculiar to John. The command, one end of which was certainly to convince the disciples of the power which had wrought the miracle, is given by our Lord a moral bearing also. They collected the fragments for their own use, each in his , the ordinary furniture of the travelling Jew (quorum cophinus fnumque supellex, Juv[89] Sat. iii. 14), to carry his food, lest he should be polluted by that of the people through whose territory he passed: see note on Mat 15:32. Observe, that here the 12 baskets are filled with the fragments of the bread alone: but in Mark, with those of the fishes also.
[89] Juvencus, 330
We must not altogether miss the reference to the twelve tribes of Israel, typifying the Church which was to be fed with the bread of life to the end of time.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 6:12. , that nothing be lost) The Lord easily makes; but yet He does not will it, that the things He made should go to loss without cause.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 6:12
Joh 6:12
And when they were filled, he saith unto his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost.-Their hunger was satisfied, and as if to teach the sin of wastefulness he commands the disciples to gather up what remained. God in all the processes of nature avoids waste. What appears to be the waste of one creature is the life of another. One would think where things come apparently so easily there would be little use for saving [but God does not allow wastefulness at any time. Nature wastes nothing. Soil washed from the hills and mountains, God catches in the valleys and low places. It is the waste of man that brings want. It is by the waste of fragments that the great wastes occur. The waste of our nation is appalling. There is food enough for all if handled properly by man. God through nature will furnish it if man will use wisdom in producing and saving it. Christ bids us save; save the fragments.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
they: Neh 9:25, Mat 14:20, Mat 14:21, Mat 15:37, Mat 15:38, Mar 6:42-44, Mar 8:8, Mar 8:9, Luk 1:53, Luk 9:17
that nothing: Neh 8:10, Pro 18:9, Luk 15:13, Luk 16:1
Reciprocal: Rth 2:18 – she had reserved 2Ki 4:6 – And the oil Psa 112:5 – he will Luk 16:21 – crumbs Joh 6:23 – where
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
ALL NEED SUPPLIED
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Joh 6:12
Five barley loaves and two small fishes in Christs hands can do more than two hundred pennyworth of bread, even if that amount could have been purchased. When will the Church fully entrust her Lord with all the resources she possesses, and cease to calculate that she requires at least two hundred pennyworth of bread before she can attempt to satisfy the needs of a hungering world.
I. The significance of the text.At the outset there was no thought on the part of the disciples of the possibility of a super-abundant supply. They were busy calculating what might be sufficient. When Christ breaks the loaves and fishes, we may be sure there will be an ample provision for all. He Himself teaches us that in this miracle we may learn of Him as the Bread of God Which came down from heaven that He might give life unto the world. His Body has been broken and His Blood shed, and in Him there is an abundance of inexhaustible supply, not for our needs alone, but also for the needs of the whole world. At His Table we are bidden to draw near with faith that we may be fed. May it not be that we experience that He not merely feeds, but feasts us? There are in Him resources far beyond anything that we have yet experienced for our life and service. May we have grace at His Table to gather up the broken pieces that remain over, and to see to it that nothing of His infinite provision for us is lost by any one of us.
II. A safeguard against presumption.This command to gather up is a safeguard against presumption. The disciples might have argued that, having One with them Who can so marvellously supply bread in the wilderness, all necessity for care and forethought on their part was removed. No, each one must take his basket, his wallet, and fill it from this abundant provision. Christ never exercises His miraculous powers where men, by prudent thought, can secure provision for themselves from His supplies. A true policy of faith will never clothe itself in the nightdress of sloth. It is impossible for us to trust our God too implicitly to work with us in all He calls us to do, but we must never presume on His working instead of us. If on the one hand we are taught that Christ is not extravagant in the exercise of His miraculous power, we are taught on the other that we too need to be careful guardians of His provision. Those broken pieces that remained over had been miraculously provided; the disciples must take care of them. The Bread of God, the Bread of Life, has been provided by the most amazing miracle, and with Him God will freely give us all things, but we must guard His gifts or we shall not be fed.
III. A note of warning.There is a solemn note of warning in the reason assigned to this command, that nothing be lost. The broken pieces that remain over. How abundant is the supply in Him Whose Body was broken, and Whose Blood was shed to make the satisfaction for the sins of the whole world! How sore is the hunger of a sin-stricken world! Let us by Gods grace determine that nothing of that precious provision shall be lost, but that we will gather it up in our individual and collective baskets and bear it forth to meet the needs of a perishing world.
Illustration
In this little circumstance, again, we have a proof that real food was supplied, and in sufficient quantity for all. There was not merely a morsel for each man, but an abundant supply, enough and to spare. Our Lords care for little things, and dislike of waste and extravagance, appear strongly in this sentence. It would be well if the principle contained in the words was more remembered by ChristiansLet nothing be lost. It is a deep principle of very wide application. Time, money, and opportunities of showing kindness and doing good are specially to be remembered in applying the principle. It admits of question whether the disciples who distributed the bread on this occasion, and afterwards gathered the fragments, did not include other helpers beside the twelve apostles. The time necessary for the distribution of bread among five thousand people, if only twelve pairs of hands were employed, would prove on calculation to be very great.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
LET NOTHING BE LOST
How can we gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost? Too many of us must feel, sadly it may be, that there are days and hours and minutes which we have lost which cannot be recalled; and not only has the precious talent of time been wasted, but opportunities for good, placed in our way by God, have been passed by unheeded. But it will not be of any use to look back on the mistakes, the faults, the lost days, unless it leads to something more than regret. It is easy enough to feel sorrow, but sorrow alone will not avail us unless we repent of the past, and repentance does not only mean being sorry. It means a desire for a better future. Well, then, let us look forward, and strive to learn from the experience of the past, and to do better by Gods help in the future.
I. We have to try and realise the reality, the earnestness of life.It is a terrible responsibility which God has given us in allowing us to live. It has been truly said in the Arab proverb, Every day in thy life is a leaf in thy history. We may forget what sort of story we have been writing day by day, but on the last day of all, when the books are opened, the leaves from lifes history will be read out. This ought to make us careful how we live day by day, since as the days are, so will the years be. As we look forward, waiting to begin our journey on the untrodden paths, let us bethink us of our equipment.
II. We need to take with us more humble faith in God.We talk of our faith, but all the while we are planning and devising for the future; fretting our hearts about what may never come to pass, and presently our cherished plan miscarries, the house which we made so strong for ourselves crumbles into ruin, and we learn that we have been foolishly following our own way instead of committing our way unto the Lord. If we would be happy and avoid the cares and worries which kill more often than actual disease, we must learn, child-like, to put our hand into the Hand of God, and to say, Lord, undertake for us.
III. We need more earnestness in the discharge of our religious duties.And remember, that every duty, every act of our daily work, is a religious duty to be done unto God and not unto men. Life in this world is like a vast machine in which there are numerous wheels and handles to be turned, some small, some great. Every one of us has his special handlehis special place or part in the work; let us strive by Gods help to fulfil His command, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Let us strive day by day to tread in the footsteps of our Master, Jesus. He it is Who doth go before us, and if we follow closely, nothing can come amiss to us, since we shall know that the sorrow and the joy alike drop from the same dear Hand. Let each day that God lends to us see something attempted, something done. Let our prayer be
Lord imbue me
With will to work in this diurnal sphere,
Knowing myself my lifes day-labourer here,
Where evening brings the days works wages to me,
Thus we shall be prepared for all the changes and the chances of this mortal life, if only we can say with truth,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to day.
Rev. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton.
Illustration
(1) Most of you have heard of the Roman Emperor who said with anguish, I have lost a day. Some of you may have heard of a nobleman, of whom it was said that he lost an hour in the morning, and was looking for it all the rest of the day. How many of us have lost a day given us by God, how many are wasting their time in looking sadly after those neglected opportunities which will never return!
Here hath been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?
(2) When the friends of Mendelssohn, the great composer, tried to dissuade him from his work, he said, Let me work while it is yet day. Who can tell how soon the bell may toll. Such should be the feeling of every worker for Jesus Christ, of every Christian. A great English writer and a good man had these words engraved on the dial-plate of his watch, The night cometh, that he might be reminded that he must work his work while it is called to-day.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2
That nothing be lost. This is the only instance of feeding the multitude, where the reason is given for gathering up the scraps. Jesus would never need them in his future service to the people, for even these materials had been miraculously produced. The reason for the instruction was to teach a lesson of economy.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
[The fragments that remain.] It was a custom and rule, that when they ate together, they should leave something to those that served: which remnant was called peah. And it is remarked upon R. Joshua, that, upon a journey, having something provided for him by a hospitable widow, he ate all up, and left nothing to her that ministered. Where the Gloss: “Every one leaves a little portion in the dish, and gives it to those that serve; which is called the servitor’s part.”
Although I would not confound the fragments that remain with the peah; nor would affirm that what was left was in observation of this rule and custom; yet we may observe, that the twelve baskets full of fragments left at this time answered to the number of the twelve apostles that ministered. It is otherwise elsewhere.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 6:12. And when they were filled, he saith unto his disciples, Gather together the pieces that remain, that nothing be lost. The earlier Gospels relate the act of the disciples, but not the command of Jesus. John, everywhere intent on what his Master did and said, preserves for us this word. The design of the command is to bring out the preciousness of the food which Jesus had given,not to teach a lesson of economy, or to reprove the over-scrupulous calculations of Andrew and Philip. It is usual to understand by pieces the fragments broken by the multitude during their meal; but it is more probable that they were pieces broken by our Lord,pieces that remained undistributed or unconsumed because of the abundance of the supply.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 12, 13. Then, when they were filled, he says to his disciples: Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost. 13. So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves which remained over to those who had eaten.
In the Synoptics, the order given to the disciples is not mentioned. This order is the triumphant answer to the timid calculations of Philip and Andrew. We can understand, moreover, the close relation which exists in the feeling of Jesus between this word: that nothing be lost, and the act of thanksgiving which had produced this abundance. A blessing thus obtained must not be undervalued. Criticism has asked where the twelve baskets came from. The number leads us to suppose that they were the traveling-baskets of the apostles; for they had not set out suddenly, as the crowds had done; or they borrowed them from those standing by. The epithet , of barley, is designed to establish the identity of these fragments with the original source, the five loaves of the lad.
Not only is this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves found in all the four Gospels, but several characteristic details are common to the four accounts:the crowds following Jesus into a desert place, the five loaves and the two fishes, the five thousand men, and the twelve baskets, and especially the solemn moment of the thanksgiving. Besides this, some features are common to three or two Gospels, particularly to Mark and John (the fresh grass, the two hundred denarii). We see that at the foundation of the four accounts there is a fact, the principal features of which were ineffaceably imprinted on the memory of all the witnesses, but whose details had not been equally well observed and retained by all. John’s account contains altogether peculiar features which attest the narrative of an eyewitness; thus the part of Philip, of Andrew and of the lad, and the character of the bread (of barley). But above all the narrative of John is the one which, as we have seen, makes us penetrate most deeply into the feeling of Jesus and the true spirit of this scene. Modern criticism claims that it was composed by means of materials furnished by the Synoptics, especially by Mark (so Baur, Hilgenfeld, and, in some degree, Weizsackerhimself, p. 290). But what! these so distinctly marked features, these most exact outlines of John’s narrative are only charlatanism! Is it not clear that it is the narrative of the Synoptics which generalizes, in saying the disciples instead of Philip, Andrew, etc.,? and that we recognize here a narrative which traditional reproduction had robbed of its sharp edges?
According to Paulus, there is no need of seeing anything miraculous in this scene. Jesus and the disciples brought out their provisions, generously offering a share of them to their neighbors who followed their example, and, as each gave what he had, every one had enough. Renan seems to adopt this explanation of the fact, if not of the text: Jesus withdrew into the desert. A large number of people followed Him. Thanks to an extreme frugality, the pious company had enough to eat; they believed, of course, that they saw in this a miracle. What, with all this,Paulus and Renan do not explain is, that so simple a fact could have carried the crowd to such a pitch of excitement that, on that same evening, they attempted to get possession of Jesus in order to proclaim Him King (Joh 6:14-15)!Olshausen holds an acceleration of the natural process which multiplies the grain of wheat in the bosom of the earth; he thus furnishes matter for Strauss ‘ ridicule, who asks whether the law of natural reproduction applies also to broiled fish? Lange supposes that it is not the matter itself of the provisions, which was multiplied, but the nutritive power of the molecules!Either we place ourselves by faith in the region of the supernatural, which is created here on earth by the presence of Jesus, or we refuse to enter that higher sphere. In the latter case, the only part to take is to explain this story with Strauss as a mythical product. But what difficulties does not this hypothesis encounter in the perfectly simple, prosaic character of the four narratives, in the mass of small historical details in which they agree, in the authenticity of even one of the writings which contain the story, and finally in the fact that the narrative, before passing into our three Synoptics, had certainly formed a part of the apostolic tradition of which they are independent redactions (see the differences of detail). A fact which was necessarily accomplished with such notoriety could become the subject of a public narrative only on condition of having actually occurred.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Everyone had enough to eat. Jesus satisfied everyone’s appetite. There was even quite a bit of food left over that Jesus instructed His disciples to collect to avoid waste. All four evangelists noted that there were 12 large Jewish baskets (Gr. kophinos) of bread fragments left over. Commentators have suggested that they represent food for the disciples or food for Israel’s 12 tribes. At least this detail proves the abundance of Jesus’ provision for the people who were present. Each of the Twelve had his own evidence of Jesus’ supernatural power and His adequacy.