In our daily devotionals, we are exploring the Lord Jesus' supernatural acts during His time on earth. Today, we focus on the feeding of more than 5,000 people:
12Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.” 13He replied, “You give them something to eat.” They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” 14(About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15The disciples did so, and everyone sat down. 16Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. 17They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over (Luke 9:10-17).
The Reality of the Remote Place: More Than 5,000 Fed
Matthew mentions a crowd of over five thousand people: “The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children” (Matthew 14:21). Considering there were likely at least 12,000 attendees, five loaves of bread and two fish seem insufficient. Furthermore, John 6:9 specifies that these were five small barley loaves, which, as per the Mishnah—a Jewish commentary—were the bread that the poorest of the poor ate.[1]
The Significance of the Five Loaves and Two Fish
The apostle John describes how Andrew found a boy willing to share his lunch (John 6:9). The food was probably just enough for one person, perhaps quickly packed by his mother as he set out. John uses the Greek word “opsarion” to refer to the two fish in the boy’s lunch, which describes small, typically dried or pickled fish similar to sardines, usually no longer than six inches and eaten with bread. The five barley loaves were likely smaller than today’s pita bread, and the pickled fish would add flavor. When the disciples saw this boy's lunch, Jesus made a surprising statement: “Have the people sit down” (John 6:10). This implied, “Let's sit down to eat,” even though they had only the boy's lunch available. Luke adds that Jesus told the crowd to sit in groups of fifty and hundreds (v. 14).
A Lesson in Divine Multiplication
He then broke the bread and fish into pieces and kept distributing them. The imperfect Greek tense of the verb indicates that He continued serving. The more people received, the more they ate. It was remarkable that such a small amount of food fed everyone. I believe they looked to the disciples, seeking confirmation that they were only eating a boy’s lunch. As they ate, they exchanged amazed glances at the impossibility of the situation. With God, everything is possible!
Twelve Baskets: The Overflow of God’s Provision
How amazing it must have been to be one of the disciples sent by the Lord with a basket to collect the leftovers. As each group of fifty or a hundred tossed their leftover pieces of fish and bread into twelve baskets, one for each disciple, they would examine the baskets and find far more fish and bread than they had started with. It was glorifying to the Lord as each family and social group reported that they had eaten to the full and had plenty of leftovers.
Jesus: The Prophet Like Moses Predicted in Deuteronomy
John tells us that when the people realized the miraculous nature of the feeding of the five thousand, they began to say, “This is truly the Prophet!” (John 6:14). Many hundreds of years earlier, God spoke to Moses, telling him that the Lord would send Israel a prophet whose ministry would be like Moses’ and that they should listen very carefully to Him:
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him (Deuteronomy 18:15).
Christ is the Prophet destined to come into the world, mirroring the Manna provided to Moses, which God miraculously fed to the Israelites (Numbers 11:31-34). When the people who ate it recognized that He was the One Moses had spoken of, they wanted to seize Him and make Him king. However, it was not God’s appointed time for that—God’s plan was for Christ to serve as a sacrificial substitute for humanity. Keith Thomas
Continue Your Journey…
If you found this meditation meaningful, there is much more to explore about the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and then Study 19. Luke 9:1-17 – Jesus Sends Out the Twelve. The story of the feeding of the 5000 starts on page 7.
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[1] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Hendrickson Publishers, page 467