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Verse 8

And they ate, and were filled: and they took up, of broken pieces that remained over, seven baskets.

And were filled ... Wycliffe rendered this passage "they were fulfilled," the original meaning of fulfill being to fill full.

Seven baskets ... The word for basket in this miracle is from a different Greek word than the word translated "baskets" in the other wonder and has a sharp difference of meaning. Both refer to wicker containers, but the one meant here is flexible and much larger. This was the type of basket used to let Paul down over the Damascus wall (Acts 9:25), and it has been surmised that these were the equivalent of what we would call "sleeping bags," and probably being the property of the Twelve. The baskets in view in the other miracle seem to have been the picnic type of basket, twelve of them having been given by the multitude to contain the fragments of the first wonder. This is another significant difference in the two miracles and cannot be explained as a matter of the sacred writers' using different words for the same thing. Christ himself referred to the baskets with this distinction (Mark 8:19-20). The shade of meaning in English would be more evident if "baskets" were used in the first instance and "sacks" in the second.

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