How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?

 

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

 

- Mark 8:1–10 

 

Yesterday we read that, having engaged in an open confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes who came to Him from Jerusalem, Jesus arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."  Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.  Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

 

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.   This is yet a second feeding of a multitude (see the first at this reading), and should not be confused with the first.  They are two distinct miracles.   (Jesus will refer to each in our following reading.)  The differences between the two miracles are significant, especially in the symbolic values of the numbers we're given.  In the first instance, there were five loaves.  Five symbolizes the Law (as in the five books of Moses, or Torah).  Here there are seven loaves and also seven large baskets of leftover fragments for the disciples to carry away.  In the symbolism of Scripture, seven stands for completeness.  Here my study Bible says, it indicates spiritual perfection.  So, in the first feeding, Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law; here, He shows it is He who gives spiritual perfection.  We should understand also that in the Greek, "perfect" also comes from the word meaning "end," and so indicates a fullness of something.  Additionally, in today's reading, the crowds have been with Christ for three days.  This is the number of days He will rest in the tomb.  My study Bible comments that participation in Christ's perfection can only come through being united to His death (see Romans 6:3-5).  

 

 There are additional symbolic meanings we can look at in today's reading.  Again, we start with a significant number, the four thousand who had eaten.  Four is a number that signifies the world, and especially an identity vis-a-vis the world.  We see it in the four directions of the compass, and the four arms of the Cross.  In this sense, the perfection of Christ is also continually manifest in His gospel going out to the fullness of the world.  That this number is four thousand symbolizes the vast, even uncountable multitudes that are reached in Him.  His will be one sacrifice for all time, for all the world, continually giving and feeding multitudes upon multitudes.  Moreover, the significance is there in the region this takes place.  For now we are in territory that also has Gentile populations in it, further away from  the religious leadership in Jerusalem.   So the expansion of Christ's word and even the bread of Christ to all the world, including Gentiles, is here in the symbolic meanings of this event.  Additionally, this feeding in the wilderness, even in this area which also has Gentile populations, tells us that the fulfillment of the Lord's feeding of Israel in the wilderness is also made present to all the world in Christ (Exodus 16).  The bread of heaven is fulfilled for all the world, for all time, in Christ.