Mark 8:1-9

1 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them,

² “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.

³ And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.”

⁴ Then His disciples answered Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?”

⁵ He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.”

⁶ So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.

⁷ They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.

⁸ So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.

⁹ Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away,

Also found in Matthew 15:32-38.

On the earlier occasion (Mark 6:35-44), when Jesus fed a crowd, the disciples had approached Him and asked what should be done. Here, Jesus initiates the conversation.

The disciples (v.4) had apparently learned nothing from the earlier miracle. (See Mark 6:52; 8:16.)

satisfy (v.4) = lit. “feed, fill, satisfy with food”

wilderness (v.4) = uninhabited region. The people had apparently followed Him with no thought of their own needs.

filled (v.8) — The people all had as much food as they wanted.

The durative (continuing, not completed) tense is used in verses 5-6. Wuest translates these verses like this:

And He went to asking them, How many loaves of bread do you have? and they said, Seven. And He commands the crowd to recline on the ground. and having taken the seven loaves of bread, having given thanks, He broke, and kept on giving them to His disciples in order that they might keep on setting them forth. And they served the crowd. — Wuest, page 158.

blessed (v.7) = asked God’s blessing on a thing, prayed Him to bless it to one’s use.

baskets (v.8) — The word used for basket is different from the word used in Mark 6:43. There, it refers to a small basket used to carry provisions — like a lunch basket. Here, in Mark 8, the word refers to a large basket, one that can hold a man. It’s the word used in Acts 9:25, where Paul is lowered down the wall in a basket.

four thousand (v.9) — Matthew 15:38 indicates that the number 4,000 did not include woman and children, some of which were also likely there.