Luke 9:17

κλασμάτων. Compare 2 Kings 4:43-44. These were collected by the order of Jesus, who thus strikingly taught that wastefulness even of miraculous plenty is entirely alien to the divine administration.

κόφινοι δώδεκα. Probably wicker-baskets (salsilloth, Jeremiah 6:9). Every Jew carried such a basket about with him to avoid the chance of his food contracting any Levitical pollution in heathen places (Juv. Sat. III. 14, VI. 542). The baskets used at the miracle of the four thousand were large rope-baskets, ‘frails’ (σπυρίδες). The accuracy with which each word is reserved for its own proper miracle by all the narrators is remarkable.

At this point there is a considerable gap in the continuity of St Luke’s narrative. He omits the amazement of the multitude which made it likely that they would seize Jesus to make Him king; His compelling His reluctant disciples to sail back towards the other—the western—Bethsaida; the gradual dismissal of the multitude; His flight (φεύγει, John 6:15, א) to the hill top to escape those who still lingered, and to pray alone; the gathering of the storm; the walking on the sea; the failure of Peter’s faith; the very memorable discourse at Capernaum, intended to teach what was the true bread from heaven, and to dissipate the material expectations of the popular Messianism; the crisis of offence caused by these hard sayings; the dispute with the Pharisees on the question of the Oral Law or Tradition of the Elders; the deepening opposition and the one great day of conflict and rupture with the Pharisees (which St Luke appears to relate out of chronological order in 11); the flight among the heathen as far as Tyre and Sidon; the incident of the Syrophoenician woman; the feeding of the four thousand; the return to Galilee and demand for a sign; the sailing away; the warning against the leaven of the Pharisees; and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida Julias during His second journey northwards. These must be sought for in Matthew 14:1 to Matthew 16:12; Mark 6:45 to Mark 8:30; John 6. For my view of them, and their sequence, I may perhaps be allowed to refer the reader to my Life of Christ, I. 403–II. 9.