Biblion Bible Commentary
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Five Barley Loaves
John 6:1-15
1 After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is also called the Sea of Tiberias. · WEB
A boy's lunch feeds a hillside, and the crowd's response is to try to make him king by force.
Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand John 6:4.
The note is dropped in before anything happens and it governs the whole chapter. Passover is the feast of bread and of a deliverance in a wilderness, and what follows is bread in a wilderness followed by a discourse about manna.
"Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do John 6:5–6.
This account alone says the question was a test and that the answer was already settled. Philip is being asked not for advice but to find out what he will say.
"Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may receive a little" John 6:7. He does the arithmetic, and it is good arithmetic — eight months' wages, and it would still only be a mouthful each. What he produces is an accurate account of why nothing can be done.
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these among so many?" John 6:9.
Andrew is here doing what Andrew always does, which is bring somebody John 1:41 — and this time it is a child with a packed lunch, produced with an apology. His last clause concedes the case before it is argued.
Barley is the detail. It was the cheap grain, the poor man's bread, and five small loaves is one boy's day. The whole visible resource is the least valuable food in the country.
Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to those who were sitting down John 6:11.
No word of command is recorded and no moment of multiplication is described. He gives thanks and starts handing it out, and the distribution runs through the men who had just explained that it could not be done.
Likewise also of the fish as much as they desired. Not a ration. As much as they wanted.
"Gather up the broken pieces which are left over, that nothing be lost" John 6:12.
The instruction is this account's own and it is a strange one to give after that. A man who has just fed five thousand from five loaves sends his disciples round to collect scraps — and the reason given is that nothing be lost, the same phrase he uses later about the people the Father has given him John 6:39.
So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves John 6:13. Twelve baskets from five loaves, one for each man who had said it was impossible.
"This is truly the prophet who comes into the world" John 6:14. The crowd reaches the right category — Moses had promised a prophet like himself Deuteronomy 18:15, and Moses had fed a nation in a wilderness. They have understood the sign and drawn a conclusion.
Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself John 6:15.
And then the conclusion they draw from it. A man who can produce food from nothing solves the fundamental problem of any insurgency, and they are ready to install him that afternoon.
The verb is violent — take him by force. This is not an invitation; it is an abduction, and it is the wilderness offer of the kingdoms arriving in the friendliest possible form Matthew 4:8–9.
What he does is leave. Alone, up a mountain, away from the largest and most enthusiastic crowd he ever gathered — and the next morning he will tell them exactly why they came looking.
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