John 6:10

‘Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down in number about five thousand.'

Jesus now commanded that the people be made to sit down, and as the disciples obeyed they must all have been asking, ‘what on earth is He going to do?'

‘There was much grass in the place'. This is noted less clearly by Matthew and Mark, although Mark mentions that the grass was green. The comment bears the stamp of an eyewitness who remembers it vividly. It is pathetic to suggest that such reminiscences are inventions intended to give a touch of authenticity to the narrative, for they are made so casually that this is unlikely, and indeed it would have been gross deceit. We may well ask, how could one who wrote about truth so sublimely be guilty of such deceit? Blindness is not only limited to the Judaisers.

‘Men --- in number about five thousand.' Five is the number of the covenant. The mention of ‘five thousand' was probably in order to symbolise a covenant meal. This was the number of  men. There were also women and children (Matthew 14:21). We learn elsewhere that they sat them down in ‘fifties' for better organisation. Thus they had a rough idea how many people there were.