“Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.”
Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat — the disciples' proposed solution is the obvious human response: send them away to find their own food. The proposal is not selfish — they are thinking about the crowd's welfare. But the solution is a sending away rather than a feeding — it addresses the crowd's need by removing them from the place of need rather than meeting the need where they are. The disciples are thinking in the categories of scarcity; Jesus is about to act in the categories of kingdom abundance.
Church Fathers on Mark 6:36
The Lord, placing before them, first, what is most profitable, that is, the food of the word of God, afterwards also gave the multitude food for their bodies; in beginning to relate which, the Evangelist say, 'And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him, and said, This is a desert place.
The time being far spent, points out that it was evening. Wherefore Luke says, 'But the day had begun to decline.'
This in the Gospel of John is the answer to Philip, but Mark gives it as the answer of the disciples, wishing it to be understood that Philip made this answer as a mouthpiece of the others; although he might put the plural number for the singular, as is usual.
Read all 13 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a reflection on this verse
No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!