John 6:10

Make the men sit down.

We learn from Mark that they sat down in companies. Our word parties, in its convivial acceptation, is, as nearly as possible,. reproduction of the original term. The multitude was to be arranged in. suite of parties, no doubt semicircularly adjusted, after the form of Roman triclinia, or Grecian symposia. Such. semicircular or three-sided style of parties had become common among the Jews, being adopted from the Greeks and Romans; and hence the frequent reference, in the New Testament, to reclining at meals.

There was much grass there.

It was in Nisan, "the month of flowers," and the slopes were rich with the soft green of the spring grass.

About five thousand.

Thus there was one loaf to every thousand men. Matthew adds, "besides women and children," of whom there were doubtless many. It was customary then, as now, in the East, for men to eat alone, reclining, and the women and children by themselves, sitting. It was easy to number the men, who were arranged in companies of hundreds and fifties; but not the women and children, who perhaps sat around promiscuously.