“And they did all eat, and were filled.”
They all ate and were satisfied — the all and the satisfied are the two key terms. Not some, not most — all five thousand plus ate. Not barely, not insufficiently — satisfied (echortasthēsan, they ate their fill). The miracle produces the abundance of the kingdom: not minimal sufficiency but generous satisfaction. The feeding of five thousand in a wilderness place by the one who broke the bread is the messianic banquet in anticipation — Isaiah 25:6 (a feast of rich food for all peoples), Isaiah 55:1–2 (come, all who are thirsty), the shalom-feast of the age to come enacted in the present.
Church Fathers on Mark 6:42
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
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