Mark 8:8

seven baskets Not the small wicker cophinoiof the former miracle, but large baskets of rope, such as that in which St Paul was lowered from the wall of Damascus (Acts 9:25). We notice at once the difference between this and the Miracle of the Five Thousand:

(a) The people had been with the Lord upwards of three days, a point not noted on the other occasion;

(b) Seven loaves are now distributed and a few fishes, then five loaves and two fishes;

(c) Five thousand were fed then, four thousand are fed now;

(d) On this occasion seven large rope-baskets are filled with fragments, on the other twelve small wicker baskets.

(e) The more excitable inhabitants of the coast-villages of the North would have taken and made Him a king (John 6:15); the men of Decapolis and the Eastern shores permit Him to leave them without any demonstration.