The Bible Says
Mark 8:1-10 Meaning

The parallel Gospel account for Mark 8:1-10 is found in Matthew 15:32-38.

In Mark 8:1-10, Jesus compassionately fed four thousand people with seven loaves and a few small fish, and after everyone was satisfied, seven large baskets of leftovers were collected.

Jesus had recently entered the Decapolis (Mark 7:31).

Decapolis means “ten” (deca) “cities” (polis). The Decapolis was a Roman district of ten predominantly Gentile cities located east and southeast of the Sea of Galilee. This district was united by their shared Hellenistic culture and close ties to Rome. These cities, such as Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Scythopolis, were centers of Greek language, architecture, and commerce, standing in contrast to the Jewish villages nearby.

Because the Decapolis was Gentile and culturally pagan, it would have been unusual for a Jewish rabbi such as Jesus to enter or spend much time in the Decapolis. Jesus may have been trying to avoid the large crowds and/or hostile Pharisees so He could spend some time teaching His disciples in solitude (Mark 6:32, 7:24). But during this season of His ministry, everywhere Jesus went He encountered crowds, including the Decapolis.

This crowd seemed to welcome Jesus. Previously when Jesus came near the Decapolis the people told Jesus to leave once they saw how the demons fled the wild man of the tombs and went into the pigs who drove themselves off a cliff (Mark 5:1-17).

The man whom Jesus freed asked to go with Him, but Jesus did not let him, instead, Jesus told the former demoniac: “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19b). Mark then adds: “And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed” (Mark 5:20).

It is possible that the crowds that now flocked to Jesus when He entered the Decapolis consisted of people who were impacted by this former demoniac.

Matthew writes that when Jesus entered the Decapolis, “large crowds came to Him” (Matthew 15:30a). Instead of turning them away, Jesus healed the lame, crippled, blind, and mute who they brought to Him (Matthew 15:30b). Mark describes Jesus’s healing of a deaf man with a severe speech impediment (Mark 7:32-37).

After describing that miracle, Mark continues:

In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat (v 1a).

In those days refers to the period of days that Jesus was in the Decapolis teaching and healing the multitudes. Mark says that again there was a large crowd around Jesus. The word again points to the fact that a large crowd had gathered around Jesus before and that this had become a common occurrence.

But at this particular time, when there was a large crowd gathered around Jesus, Mark points out that the people in that crowd had nothing to eat.

Jesus was aware that they had nothing to eat.

Jesus called His disciples and said to them, “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat” (vv 1b-2).

The reason Jesus called His disciples to Himself was to let them know about the lack-of-food-problem. In telling them this, Jesus was likely testing His disciples’ faith to see if they had grown since the time when Jesus miraculously fed five thousand Israelite men by multiplying five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:34-44, Luke 9:12-17, John 6:1-14).

Of that earlier miracle, Mark wrote:

“for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.”
(Mark 6:52)

Perhaps this occasion was another opportunity for His disciples to demonstrate and/or grow this faith.

Jesus said to His disciples that He felt compassion for the people.

The Greek word that is translated as feel compassion is a form of σπλαγχνίζομαι (G4697—“splagchnizomai,” pronounced: “splangkh-nid’-zom-ahee”). It means to “be moved as to one’s bowels,” hence “to be moved with compassion” or to “have compassion” (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity). A modern expression would be that Jesus’s heart went out to the people.

Jesus’s expression I feel compassion for the people is reminiscent of Mark’s description of how the Lord “felt compassion for them [the Israelite crowd who flocked to Him] because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34) just before Jesus fed the five thousand.

Jesus explained the reason He felt compassion for the people was because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat.

This large crowd of people was dedicated to learning what they could learn from Jesus. And it seems they did not want to leave His side because they would miss hearing something He might teach them. By now (i.e. the time Jesus called His disciples to Him and said this statement) the large crowd of people had remained with Jesus for three days. And during this time the people had either not eaten, or they had run out of food so that the people had nothing to eat.

It was time for Jesus and the disciples to move on, but Jesus did not want to dismiss the crowd in their famished condition. He said:

“If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance” (v 3).

As before, when He fed the five thousand Jews in a desolate place on the northeastern shore of Galilee (Mark 6:35), the place in the Decapolis where Jesus was now among the Gentile crowd also seemed to be remote. All the people who came would have to travel back to their cities and homes.

Because the people likely had not eaten much food during the last three days they were with Him, Jesus was concerned that if He sent them away hungry now, that they will faint from a lack of strength or stamina on the way to their homes. He pointed out that some of them have come from a great distance. In this context, a great distance could mean up to a day’s journey of walking—approximately 10-20 miles in that hilly terrain. For those who were already traveling in the area when Jesus came to the Decapolis, the distance to their homes could be even further.

When Jesus called His disciples to Him to point out this problem, He likely already knew how He would miraculously solve it. He already knew He could miraculously provide food for everyone—and the disciples should have known it too. A few weeks or months before, they had witnessed Him feed five thousand men with only five loaves and two fish (Mark 6:33–44). Now Jesus was giving His disciples a chance to show they had grown in faith.

And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” (v 4).

The disciples’ response to what Jesus pointed out to them suggests they had not grown significantly.

Instead of professing faith in what Jesus was capable of and instead of asking He who was God in human form for wisdom or provision, the disciples complained.

They asked Jesus a rhetorical question that indicated a lack of faith and their own frustration at the situation: “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?”

The implied answer to the disciples’ rhetorical question was that no one (including Jesus) will be able to find enough bread to feed and satisfy the large crowd here in this desolate place. According to their faithless despair—there was nowhere anyone could find enough food.

Jesus patiently responded to His disciples’ lack of faith.

And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” (v 5a).

In Greek, the expression ‘He was asking’ uses the Greek imperfect tense. The imperfect tense utilizes a continuous aspect—which means Jesus was repeatedly asking this question—How many loaves do you have?—again and again to His disciples.

In asking this question over and over, Jesus was trying to refocus His disciples’ attention to what they had and who He was rather than the seeming impossibility of their circumstances.

Eventually one or more of His disciples answered His question.

And they said, “Seven” (v 5b).

In Jewish thought, the number seven is the number of completion and of rest (Genesis 2:2, Leviticus 4:6, Joshua 6:4). God made the world in six days and on the seventh day He rested (Genesis 2:2).

The number seven may have reminded the disciples that they had enough bread for everyone to be complete and full. And that they could rest in Jesus and His provision, and not worry about where to find enough bread in this desolate place to satisfy everyone.

Matthew’s account records the disciples as answering: “Seven, and a few small fish” (Matthew 15:34b). Mark points out later how They also had a few small fish (v 7a).

And He directed the people to sit down on the ground (v 6a).

As Jesus had done when He fed the five thousand men, He directed the people to sit down on the ground (Mark 6:39-40). Mark does not explicitly say that Jesus had them sit in groups as He did with the crowd of five thousand (Mark 6:40), but He may have had the people group together for the sake of organization for how to distribute the food He was about to miraculously provide.

With everyone seated on the ground, Mark describes the miracle Jesus brought about:

… and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people (v 6b).

First, Jesus took the seven loaves of bread. He gave thanks to God for them. He broke the seven loaves into pieces of bread, and then He started giving them to His disciples so His disciples could serve the bread to multitudes of people sitting down on the ground.

As in the previous miracle (Mark 6:41), instead of dividing the seven loaves of bread as He broke them, Jesus multiplied them. Somehow, miraculously, there was more bread when Jesus broke it rather than less bread or the same amount.

Jesus did the same with the fish.

They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well (v 7).

Again, as Jesus broke the fish into pieces for people to eat, the fish multiplied. Instead of having less food, there was more food. And Jesus ordered His disciples to serve the fish in addition to the bread so that the people could eat and be nourished for their journey home.

And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces (v 8).

Mark describes how everyone in the crowd ate as much as they pleased and became full and satisfied. Throughout the ancient world, it would not have been common or often for the vast majority of regular people to experience satisfaction after a meal. The abundance of food we have in many countries today would amaze the people of the 1^st century. But everyone who ate the fish and loaves at Jesus’s miracle became satisfied—with food left over.

The disciples picked up seven large baskets full of the food that was left over.

Earlier, when Jesus satisfied the crowd of Israelites, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers (Matthew 14:20, Mark 6:42-43). The number twelve signified how Jesus was the Messiah who came to restore the twelve tribes of Israel.

But here when Jesus satisfied the Gentile crowd, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftovers. As mentioned earlier, the number seven in Hebrew thought represents wholeness and completion (Genesis 2:2). The seven baskets left over after feeding this Gentile crowd point to the completeness of Christ’s mission: though His ministry began with the Jews, His redemption would extend to all nations (Isaiah 49:6, John 3:16, Romans 11:25).

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul explained that after Christ’s death and resurrection, Gentiles had begun to be brought into God’s family,

“As it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
(Ephesians 3:5b-6)

Jesus’s miracle of feeding the Gentiles symbolizes the redemption of the Gentiles. This redemption would be accomplished through the breaking of Jesus’s body, given for all—the Bread of Life (John 6:35). As the Gospel of John states:

“This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
(John 6:50-51) 

And as the Gospel of Luke states:

“And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’”
(Luke 22:19)

Jesus was not only the long-awaited Jewish Messiah—He was also “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Through His death and resurrection, He brings salvation that erases every boundary, so that “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew” (Colossians 3:11). Truly, Jesus is Lord of all!

Jesus’s miraculous feeding was a foreshadowing, an appetizer—of the Messianic banquet and how it will be filled with Gentiles (Luke 13:29).

Mark records the number of this Gentile crowd that Jesus fed.

About four thousand were there (v 9a).

Matthew calculates: “And those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children” (Matthew 15:38). Factoring in the women and children, the total crowd likely numbered anywhere from eight to sixteen thousand.

and He sent them away (v 9).

After everyone had eaten and was satisfied, Jesus dismissed the large crowd to return to their homes. He had been teaching and healing among these Gentiles in the Decapolis for three days. But Jesus also had important matters to attend to with His disciples.

It seemed apparent that He should not expect to find quiet and seclusion with His disciples here in the Decapolis, so He left.

And immediately He entered the boat with His disciples and came to the district of Dalmanutha (v 10).

The district of Dalmanutha is another name for Galilee. Archeologists are not certain where this location is exactly, but Matthew writes that after Jesus sent the crowds away, He “got into the boat and came to the region of Magadan” (Matthew 15:39).

Magadan may be related to the town of Magdala, which is on the western shore of Galilee northwest of the Decapolis. Dalmanutha was likely the Aramaic name of a small village or harbor located near Magdala. Magdala means “tower,” and it is known as the hometown of Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus freed from seven demons (Luke 8:2).