Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Luke · About this commentary
Five Thousand in the Desert Place
Luke 9:10-17
10 The apostles, when they had returned, told him what things they had done. He took them and withdrew apart to a desert region of a city called Bethsaida. · WEB
He tries to take the twelve away for a rest, the crowd follows, and he hands the problem back to them.
He took them and withdrew apart to a desert region of a city called Bethsaida Luke 9:10.
The apostles come back from the mission and are taken away, which is the pattern of this book — the withdrawal after work rather than before it. It fails immediately.
But the multitudes, perceiving it, followed him. He welcomed them, and spoke to them of God's Kingdom, and he cured those who needed healing Luke 9:11.
He welcomed them. The retreat is lost and there is no trace of resentment in the account. He does the two things he always does, teaching and healing, on a day set aside for rest.
The feeding itself is told in the earliest account Mark 6:30–56, with the ordered groups and the twelve baskets. It is the only miracle before the resurrection that all four Gospels carry.
"Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and farms and lodge and get food, for we are here in a deserted place" Luke 9:12.
The disciples' suggestion is sensible and it is also a request to make the problem someone else's. They have just returned from a mission where strangers fed them, and the instinct now is to send strangers away to be fed elsewhere.
"You give them something to eat" Luke 9:13. The order comes before the resources are counted, which is the order these things arrive in.
He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to the sky, he blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude Luke 9:16. The four verbs are the ones he will use over bread on the last night Luke 22:19, and the same ones the two on the Emmaus road will recognize him by Luke 24:30. And the distribution runs through the twelve — what leaves his hands passes through theirs, which is the answer to the instruction they could not carry out.
They ate and were all filled. They gathered up twelve baskets of broken pieces that were left over Luke 9:17. One basket each. The men who said they had nothing end the day carrying more than they started with.
settled What this mark means