Ep. 43: The Feeding of the 5000
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MATTHEW 14:13-21, MARK 6:30-44, LUKE 9:10-17, JOHN 6:1-14
Jesus and his disciples needed to get away from Capernaum and rest. They made the short journey to Beth-Saida (‘the house of fishing’) on the eastern border of Galilee. What followed was the only event since his last visit to Jerusalem that was recorded in all four Gospels, so it must have been highly significant!
People started to gather and soon swelled to the immense number of ‘about 5,000 men besides women and children.’ The circumstance was that Passover time was near, so that many must have been starting on their journey to Jerusalem. And this, perhaps together with the effect on the people of John’s murder, may also explain their eagerness to gather around Jesus.
As we picture it to ourselves, Jesus with his disciples and perhaps followed by those who had outrun the rest, first climbing to the top of the hill and there resting. Then, as he saw the gathering of the great multitude. He was ‘moved with compassion towards them.’ It was this depth of longing and intensity of pity that now ended his rest and brought him down from the hill to meet the gathering multitude in the ‘desert’ plain beneath. And what a sight to meet his gaze - these thousands of men, besides women and children. And now the sun had passed its meridian, and the shadows fell longer on the surging crowd.
What would they eat? Were they to buy two hundred denarii worth of loaves? No, they were not to buy, but to give what they could, initially! How many loaves had they? Let them go and see. And when Andrew went to see what bounty the young lad carried for them. He brought back the tidings, ‘He has five barley loaves and two small fishes’. When we read that these five were barley loaves, we realise the poverty of the situation. These were the crudest and cheapest of all bread. Hence, as the Mishnah puts it, while all other meat-offerings were of wheat, that brought by the woman accused of adultery was to be of barley, because ‘as her deed is that of animals, so her offering is also of the food of animals.’
The Gospel of John here uses a rare term for ‘fish’, ‘opsarion,’ which properly means what was eaten along with the bread and especially refers to the small and generally dried or pickled fish eaten with bread, like sardines. As the head of the household, Jesus took the bread, ‘blessed it’ and ‘broke’ it. The expression recalls that connected with the Holy Eucharist. Those baskets used, known in Jewish writings as kephiphah, were made of wicker or willow and were considered of the poorest kind. There is a touching contrast between this feast for the five thousand (besides women and children) and the paltry provision of barley bread and the two small fishes; and, again, between the quantity left and the coarse wicker baskets in which it was stored.
The multitude looked on as the disciples gathered up the fragments into their baskets and the murmur ran through the ranks, ‘This is truly the Prophet, the coming One into the world.’ And so the Baptist’s last inquiry, ‘Are You the Coming One?’ was fully and publicly answered, and that by the Jews themselves.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)