Mark 8:1

Topics which make up the subject matter of Mark 8 are: the feeding of the 4,000 (Mark 8:1-9), the Lord's refusal to give the Pharisees the kind of sign they wanted (Mark 8:11-13), questions concerning the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod (Mark 8:14-21), healing the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26), Peter's confession of Christ (Mark 8:37-30), and the first announcement of his Passion, resurrection, and second coming (Mark 8:31-38).

THE FEEDING OF THE FOUR THOUSAND

This miracle, recorded only by Mark and Matthew (Matthew 15:29-39), is similar to that of feeding the five thousand which was recorded by all four evangelists; and yet there are very significant differences. As Cranfield noted, the ground of our Saviour's compassion in the first miracle was "the fact that the people are like sheep without a shepherd"; whereas, in this, "it is the fact that they have been so long without food."[1] Trench called attention to the fact that the multitude here had been with the Lord three days; whereas, in the other, no such time lapse had occurred. He also stressed that "the numbers fed are fewer, the supply of food larger, and the number of baskets of fragments left over is less" than in the former miracle, drawing the significant conclusion that "Legend grows; the new outdoes the old; but here it does not even stand on an equality with it."[2] Bickersteth pointed out that the people Jesus here fed were commanded to sit down "on the ground, not on the `green grass' as before. It was a different season of the year."[3] Pertinent as are all of these differences, one has to go back to Augustine for perhaps the most significant difference of all, namely, that the people fed in this miracle were Gentiles in the principal part, whereas those fed in the other were principally Jews. This key fact explains why two such miracles were performed, showing God's fairness in dealing with Gentiles as he had dealt with the chosen people; and it also explains the apostles' reluctance to suppose that Christ would do such a thing, especially in the light of their having witnessed the other miracle so recently. The entire pattern of the Lord's ministry at this point demanded this second miracle of feeding the multitudes. He had just abolished distinctions between clean and unclean meats and extended mercy to the daughter of the Gentile woman of Syro-Phoenicia, despite the apostles' reluctance to allow it; and in this marvel of feeding the four thousand, Christ wrought a wholesale wonder for the benefit of a whole Gentile multitude, just as he had done for Jews in the other case. The fact that both miracles were done on the same side of Galilee but with such diversity in the character of the multitudes benefited came about because the Jews were in that vicinity by reason of following Jesus from the west; but the Gentiles had followed from the Decapolis area in the east.

The significance of this miracle lies in the rich meaning of it for the Gentiles. Christ is the bread of life for all, not merely for Jews alone. The great overtones of the wonder which identified Christ as that Prophet like unto Moses and required all men to see in Jesus the very God himself - all these implications are as rich for the Gentiles as for the Jews.

[1] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to St. Mark (Cambridge: The University Press, 1966), p. 255.

[2] Richard Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming R. Revell Company, 1943), p. 387.

[3] E. Bickersteth, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 16, p. 331.

In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they had nothing to eat, he called unto them his disciples and said unto them. (Mark 8:1)

Here is another notable difference from the former miracle. In this instance, it is Christ who provided the initiative.