The Feeding Five Thousand story.

Mark 6.38-44, Matthew 14.17-21, Luke 9.13-17.

This story also takes place in the gospel of John, but I tell John’s version of it elsewhere. Today I’m focusing on the way the synoptic gospels tell it. John’s emphasis, honestly, is on Jesus’s Bread of Life teachings later in the chapter. The synoptics… well, you’ll see.

The Feeding Five Thousand story is basically Jesus’s riff on a similar situation with Elisha ben Šafat.

2 Kings 4.1-7 NLT

1One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the LORD. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”

2“What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”

“Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.

3And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. 4Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.”

5So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another. 6Soon every container was full to the brim!

“Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.

“There aren’t any more!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing.

7When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”

God multiplied oil to bail out this prophet. God can likewise multiply food to feed the big crowd who’d accumulated to listen to Jesus’s teaching.

Often this story’s titled, “Jesus Feeds Five Thousand.” And yeah, I can understand how you’d get that idea if all you read was the John version. Now, pay closer attention to the text and you’ll notice something.

“No, you feed them.”

In the synoptics, the students come to Jesus to point out it’s late, and maybe he oughta send the crowds away to get food. Maybe they were hungry too, and felt they oughta get away to get food; maybe they already had food, and felt weird about eating it in front of 5,000 hungry people. Either way; Jesus’s response in all three of those gospels is, “You give them something to eat.” Mk 6.37, Mt 14.16, Lk 9.13 KWL Mark includes the fact they weren’t sure they could afford to; the other two gospels skip that, because it doesn’t really matter.

Mark 6.38 KWL

Jesus tells them, “How many pitas do you have? Go look.”

Knowing already, they say, “Five, and two fishes.”

Matthew 14.17-18 KWL

17They tell Jesus, “We have nothing here but five pitas and two fishes.”

18Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.”

Luke 9.13-14 KWL

13BThey say, “We have no more than five pitas and two fishes—

unless we could go buy food for all these people.”

14AFor there are like 5,000 men.

Bread hanging (and baking) on the inside of a תַּנּוּר/tannúr, “oven,” like ancient Hebrews did it. The buns were about fist-size. [Biblical Archaeology Society]

In John, the five pitas and two fishes are some kid’s lunch. I translate ἄρτους/ártus, “breads,” as “pitas” because that’s what kind of bread they had: Flatbread. Pitas. Smaller than a bagel; about the size of a sandwich roll. Five was a child’s lunch. As for the fish, John identifies them as ὀψάρια/opsária, cooked salted fish, much like lox, eaten as a spread or relish for the bread, to give them some flavor.

Custom was for students to stand while the rabbi taught; now Jesus had ’em lay down, Roman-style, for a meal. It was basically a sign food was coming.

Mark 6.39-40 KWL

39Jesus commands them all to recline on the green grass,

group by group,

40They recline, company by company,

in groups of hundreds and fifties.

Matthew 14.19 KWL

19AOrdering the crowds to recline on the grass,

Luke 9.14-15 KWL

14BJesus tells his students,

“Have them recline in groups of 50.”

15They do so, and everyone reclines.

Now notice what happens: Jesus blesses the food, and divides it—’cause he has to give it to 12 people, y’know. And from there, Jesus’s students distributed it to everyone else.

Mark 6.41 KWL

Taking the five pitas and two fishes,

looking up into the sky,

Jesus blesses and divides the pitas,

and is giving it to his students,

so they can place it before the people,

and Jesus divides the two fishes for all.

Matthew 14.19 KWL

19Btaking the five pitas and two fishes,

looking up into the sky,

Jesus blesses them, and dividing them,

he gives his students the pitas,

and the students gives them to the crowd.

Luke 9.16 KWL

Taking the five pitas and the two fishes,

looking up into the sky,

Jesus blesses them, divides them,

and gives them to the students

to set before the crowd.

See, Jesus was training his students, as any master teaches apprentices, how to do as he does. He sent ’em out to preach and perform miracles, and now that they were back with him, no doubt they’d be tempted to hang back and let the Master do all the work again. He was teaching them not to do that. They were gonna do some of the work. That’s why he picked the Twelve in the first place.

So Jesus gave ’em the food, and it’s in their hands the food multiplied and fed 5,000.

Baskets of leftovers.

Pharisee custom was to not waste food. Crumbs—“smaller than an olive’s bulk” is how the Mishna and Gemara tend to phrase it—could be abandoned for the dogs to eat off the floor, but bigger pieces had to be kept and used in something, like matzo-ball soup. So once everyone had eaten enough, Jesus had the Twelve gather the leftovers.

Mark 6.42-44 KWL

42Everyone eats and is filled,

43and the students gather 12 baskets of crumbs and of fishes.

44Those who eat are 5,000 men.

Matthew 14.20-21 KWL

20Everyone eats and is filled,

and the students gather an abundance of crumbs—12 baskets full.

21Those who eat are like 5,000 men,

aside from women and children.

Luke 9.17 KWL

They eat and everyone is filled,

and an abundance is gathered up: 12 baskets of crumbs.

Each of the Twelve had a basket of leftovers. Not a little basket either; think a laundry basket. All taken from five pitas.

All the gospels note 5,000 men, but Matthew mentions women and children. I should point χωρὶς/horís literally means “separate,” and indicates the women and children who were ther shouldn’t be included in that number of 5,000. This is not to say Jesus was preaching to entire families of husbands, wives, and children, and he actually fed something more like 20,000. If Jesus had fed 20,000, the gospels would’ve said he fed 20,000. It’s to say the crowd was nearly all male, but not entirely; there were women and children there. But either way, 5,000 people.

Not that God’s kingdom is taxed any by feeding four times as many! Not that Jesus can’t feed thousands more. It’s just in this case, it was about 5,000.

Now for the takeaway: We’re called to do likewise.

We’re not to stand back and let Jesus, or any experienced Christian, do all the miracles, do all the work, while the rest of us stand back and watch on in amazement. We’re to get in there, get our hands dirty, in doing good. When we see a need, we’re not to turn round to our pastors or leaders and say, “You need to do something.” Nor automatically jump to the conclusion every solution has a material solution: Sometimes they do, and sometimes God wants to blow everyone’s minds by stretching a lunch into food for a legion.

Regardless of how the Holy Spirit has us act, we must act. The Spirit will help. Sometimes by multiplying our resources like crazy. Sometimes not; it’s up to him. We just need to do good.