Luke 9:12

And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) And when the day began . . .—Literally, and the day began to wear away, and the Twelve came . . .

Into the towns and country.—Better, as before (Luke 9:6, Luke 8:34), the villages and farms.

MacLaren's Expositions

Luke

BREAD FROM HEAVEN

Luke 9:10 - Luke 9:17.

The Apostles needed rest after their trial trip as evangelists. John the Baptist’s death had just been told to Christ. The Passover was at hand, and many pilgrims were on the march. Prudence and care for His followers as well as Himself suggested a brief retirement, and our Lord sought it at the Eastern Bethsaida, a couple of miles up the Jordan from its point of entrance to the lake. Matthew and Mark tell us that He went by boat, which Luke does not seem to have known. Mark adds that the curious crowd, which followed on foot, reached the place of landing before Him, and so effectually destroyed all hope of retirement. It was a short walk round the north-western part of the head of the lake, and the boat would be in sight all the way, so that there was no escape for its passengers.

Luke records the self-oblivious cordiality of Christ’s reception of the intrusive crowd. Without a sigh or sign of impatience, He ‘welcomed them’-a difficult thing to do, and one which few of us could have achieved. The motives of most of them can have been nothing higher than what leads vulgar people of all ranks and countries to buzz about distinguished men, utterly regardless of delicacy or considerateness. They want to see the notoriety, no matter what it costs him. But Jesus received them patiently, because, as Mark touchingly tells, He was ‘moved with pity,’ and saw in their rude crowding round Him the token of their lack of guides and teachers. They seemed to Him, not merely a mob of intrusive sight-seers, but like a huddled mass of unshepherded sheep.

Christ’s heart felt more lovingly than ours because His eye saw deeper, and His eye saw deeper because His heart felt more lovingly. If we would live nearer Him, we should see, as He did, enough in every man to draw our pity and help, even though he may jostle and interfere with us.

The short journey to Bethsaida would be in the early morning, and a long day of toil followed instead of the hoped-for quiet. Note that singular expression, ‘Them that had need of healing He healed.’ Why not simply ‘them that were sick’? Probably to bring out the thought that misery made unfailing appeal to Him, and that for Him to see need was to supply it. His swift compassion, His all-sufficient power to heal, and the conditions of receiving His healing, are all wrapped up in the words. Coming to the miracle itself, we may throw the narrative into three parts-the preliminaries, the miracle, and the abundant overplus.

I. Our Lord leads up to the miracle by forcing home on the minds of the disciples the extent of the need and the utter inadequacy of their resources to meet it, and by calling on them and the crowd for an act of obedience which must have seemed to many of them ludicrous.

John shows us that He had begun to prepare them, at the moment of meeting the multitude, by His question to Philip. That had been simmering in the disciples’ minds all day, while they leisurely watched Him toiling in word and work, and now they come with their solution of the difficulty. Their suggestion was a very sensible one in the circumstances, and they are not to be blamed for not anticipating a miracle as the way out. However many miracles they saw, they never seem to have expected another. That has been thought to be unnatural, but surely it is true to nature. They moved in a confusing mixture of the miraculous and the natural which baffled calculation as to which element would rule at any given moment. Their faith was feeble, and Christ rebuked them for their slowness to learn the lesson of this very miracle and its twin feeding of the four thousand. They were our true brothers in their failure to grasp the full meaning of the past, and to trust His power.

The strange suggestion that the disciples should feed the crowd must have appeared to them absurd, but it was meant to bring out the clear recognition of the smallness of their supply. Therein lie great lessons. Commands are given and apparent duties laid on us, in order that we may find out how impotent we are to do them. It can never be our duty to do what we cannot do, but it is often our duty to attempt tasks to which we are conspicuously inadequate, in the confidence that He who gives them has laid them on us to drive us to Himself, and there to find sufficiency. The best preparation of His servants for their work in the world is the discovery that their own stores are small. Those who have learned that it is their task to feed the multitude, and who have said ‘We have no more than such and such scanty resources,’ are prepared to be the distributors of His all-sufficient supply.

What a strange scene that must have been as the hundred groups of fifty each arranged themselves on the green grass, in the setting sunlight, waiting for a meal of which there were no signs! It took a good deal of faith to seat the crowd, and some faith for the crowd to sit. How expectant they would be! How they would wonder what was to be done next! How some of them would laugh, and some sneer, and all watch the event! We, too, have to put ourselves in the attitude to receive gifts of which sense sees no sign; and if, in obedience to Christ’s word, we sit down expecting Him to find the food, we shall not be disappointed, though the table be spread in the wilderness, and neither storehouse nor kitchen be in sight.

II. The miracle itself has some singular features.

Like that of the draught of fishes, it was not called forth by the cry of suffering, nor was the need which it met one beyond the reach of ordinary means. It was certainly one of the miracles most plainly meant to strike the popular mind, and the enthusiasm excited by it, according to John’s account, was foreseen by Christ. Why did He evoke enthusiasm which He did not mean to gratify? For the very purpose of bringing the carnal expectations of the crowd to a head, that they might be the more conclusively disappointed. The miracle and its sequel sifted and sent away many ‘disciples,’ and were meant to do so.

All the accounts tell of Christ’s ‘blessing.’ Matthew and Mark do not say what He blessed, and perhaps the best supplement is ‘God,’ but Luke says that He blessed the food. What He blesses is blessed; for His words are deeds, and communicate the blessing which they speak. The point at which the miraculous multiplication of the food came in is left undetermined, but perhaps the difference in the tenses of the verbs hints at it. ‘Blessed’ and ‘brake’ are in the tense which describes a single act; ‘gave’ is in that which describes a continuous repeated action. The pieces grew under His touch, and the disciples always found His hands full when they came back with their own empty. But wherever the miraculous element appeared, creative power was exercised by Jesus; and none the less was it creative, because there was the ‘substratum’ of the loaves and fishes. Too much stress has been laid on their being used, and some commentators have spoken as if without them the miracle could not have been wrought. But surely the distinction between pure creation and multiplication of a thing already existing vanishes when a loaf is ‘multiplied’ so as to feed a thousand men.

The symbolical aspect of the miracle is set forth in the great discourse which follows it in John’s Gospel. Jesus is the ‘Bread of God which came down from heaven.’ That Bread is broken for us. Not in His Incarnation alone, but in His Death, is He the food of the world; and we have not only to ‘eat His flesh,’ but to ‘drink His blood,’ if we would live. Nor can we lose sight of the symbol of His servants’ task. They are the distributors of the heaven-sent bread. If they will but take their poor stores to Jesus, with the acknowledgment of their insufficiency, He will turn them into inexhaustible supplies, and they will find that ‘there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.’ What Christ blesses is always enough.

III. The abundance left over is significant.

Twelve baskets, such as poor travellers carried their belongings in, were filled; that is to say, each Apostle who had helped to feed the hungry had a basketful to bring off for future wants. The ‘broken pieces’ were not crumbs that littered the grass, but the portions that came from Christ’s hands.

His provision is more than enough for a hungry world, and they who share it out among their fellows have their own possession of it increased. There is no surer way to receive the full sweetness and blessing of the Gospel than to carry it to some hungry soul. These full baskets teach us, too, that In Christ’s gift of Himself as the Bread of Life there is ever more than at any given moment we can appropriate. The Christian’s spiritual experiences have ever an element of infinity in them; and we feel that if we were able to take in more, there would be more for us to take. Other food cloys and does not satisfy, and leaves us starving. Christ satisfies and does not cloy, and we have always remaining, yet to be enjoyed, the boundless stores which neither eternity will age nor a universe feeding on them consume. The Christian’s capacity of partaking of Christ grows with what it feeds on, and he alone is safe in believing that ‘To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:10-17 The people followed Jesus, and though they came unseasonably, yet he gave them what they came for. He spake unto them of the kingdom of God. He healed those who had need of healing. And with five loaves of bread and two fishes, Christ fed five thousand men. He will not see those that fear him, and serve him faithfully, want any good thing. When we receive creature-comforts, we must acknowledge that we receive them from God, and that we are unworthy to receive them; that we owe them all, and all the comfort we have in them, to the mediation of Christ, by whom the curse is taken away. The blessing of Christ will make a little go a great way. He fills every hungry soul, abundantly satisfies it with the goodness of his house. Here were fragments taken up: in our Father's house there is bread enough, and to spare. We are not straitened, nor stinted in Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Day began to wear away - To decline, or as it drew near toward evening.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Lu 9:10-17. On the Return of the Twelve Jesus Retires with Them to Bethsaida, and There Miraculously Feeds Five Thousand.

(See on [1608]Mr 6:31-44).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 12-17. The history of this miracle is recorded by all the four evangelists. See Poole on "Matthew 14:15", and following verses to Matthew 14:22, and See Poole on "Mark 6:35", and following verses to Mark 6:44. We shall again meet with it, John 6:5-14, with some further circumstances. Luke hath nothing but what we have before met with.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

When the day began to wear away,.... Or "to decline", as the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions; or "to incline", as the Syriac; that is, as the Ethiopic version renders it, "when the sun was declining" towards the "horizon" and was almost set; or "when the evening time was come", as the Persic version:

then came the twelve; that is, "the disciples", as the Persic version; or "his disciples", as the Syriac: and

said unto him, send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about; the place where they were, round about the city of Bethsaida, the several adjacent houses in the fields, villages, towns, and cities:

and lodge, and get victuals; where they might have lodging for that night, it being too far for them to reach their habitations that evening; and also that they might provide themselves with proper and sufficient food, which was not to be had in the place where they were:

for we are here in a desert place; which afforded no conveniency for lodging, nor any supply of food.

Geneva Study Bible

And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 9:12. κλίνειν, the day began to decline; the fact is alluded to here, not in a participial clause, but in an independent sentence, as bringing an unwelcome close to the beneficent labours of Jesus. He went on teaching and healing, but (δὲ) the day, etc.—καταλύσωσι: the disciples in Lk. are solicitous about the lodging as well as the feeding of the people.—ἐπισιτισμόν, provisions, here only in N. T., but often in classics, e.g., with reference to the provisioning of an army (commeatus).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. to wear away] Rather, to decline.

then came the twelve] They were afraid that when once the brief twilight was over, the famished multitude might lose their way or come to harm, and some calamity happen which would give a fresh handle against Jesus. John alone tells us that He had compassionately suggested the difficulty to Philip, watching with gentle irony the trial of his faith; and that Philip despairingly said that it would cost more than 200 denarii (as we might say 10) to procure them even a minimum of food. Philip was “of Bethsaida,” but this had nothing to do with our Lord’s speaking to him, for he belonged to the western Bethsaida.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place. Simple consideration for the crowds, among whom we know were women and children, probably dictated this remark of the twelve, though it has been with some ingenuity suggested that the advice of the disciples was owing to their fear that, as darkness would soon creep over the scene, some calamity might happen which would give a fresh handle against Jesus to his many enemies. Luke 9:12

Vincent's Word Studies

And when the day began to wear away

Omit when. Render, and the day began, etc. To wear away (κλίνειν). Lit., to decline. Wyc., very literally, to bow down.

Lodge (καταλύσωσιν)

Peculiar to Luke. Primarily the verb means to break up or dissolve. Hence often in New Testament to destroy (Matthew 5:17; Mark 13:2). Intransitively, to take up one's quarters; lodge; either because the harness of the travellers' horses is loosed, or because the fastenings of their garments are untied. The kindred word κατάλυμα, a guest-chamber, occurs, Mark 14:14; or inn, Luke 2:7.

Victuals (ἐπισιτισμόν)

Only here in New Testament. Properly a stock of provisions. Thus Xenophon. "Cyrus hastened the whole journey, except when he halted in order to furnish himself with supplies" (ἐπισιτισμοῦ ἕνεκα).

Desert (ἔρημῳ)

See on Matthew 14:15.