Mark 8:1-4 1In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered and had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, 2“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have stayed with me three days and have nothing to eat. 3And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will become weary on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4And his disciples answered him, “From where can anyone feed these people with bread here in the desert?”
The generic phrase in those days catches the readers up to the time period when Jesus toured Gentile territory, somewhere between Tyre and Sidon and the Decapolis. The next story has many similarities to the feeding of the five thousand in 6:30-44. Critics argue that Mark is merely retelling the same story for literary purposes. However, the stories are different in many ways, and the historicity of them need not be doubted. Importantly in the context, Jesus again reveals his divine power over nature. The disciples were experiencing firsthand Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. The unstated question at this point is whether or not they will believe and understand what they were seeing. Jesus will pose this question to them in this chapter.
The people following Jesus were so excited to watch and experience miracles that they forgot to pack food. The situation had become dire because the crowd had not eaten for three days. The people were almost to the point of fainting. Like the earlier crowd in Galilee in 6:34, Jesus saw the physical hunger of the people and had compassion on them. It can be difficult to feed the spiritual hunger when there is physical hunger. Feeding the body can help prepare the soul for the more important food. Jesus saw right through the situation and had compassion (splangchnizomai) on the people. He saw their growing hunger and felt deeply for them. He knew extreme hunger from his time in the desert.
The disciples’ reaction is surprising since they had experienced the feeding of 5,000. They still did not understand the kingdom. They looked at the impossible through human understanding and not the eyes of faith. They had not answered for themselves the most crucial question of all: Who is Jesus? They did not know their Bibles well or remember how God had provided manna for Israel in the desert. They had the Bread of Life with them, and he would supply all they needed.
For older posts, click here.