Luke 9:10-17

Luke 9:10-17. THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. See on Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; John 6:1-13. Luke's account presents no new details, except the mention of the locality: to a city called Bethsaida. The words translated: ‘a desert place belonging to,' are not genuine; and were probably inserted to make the various accounts correspond. There need be no difficulty here. The Bethsaida spoken of was Bethsaida Julias, on the eastern side of the lake. The other Evangelists expressly state that our Lord and His disciples went ‘in a boat' thither; Luke omits all reference to this. As the Twelve had been preaching in Galilee, Eastern Bethsaida would be across the lake, and so situated, that the easiest way thither would be by sea, and yet that the multitudes could go on foot (Matthew, Mark) round the head of the lake. (It is doubtful whether there was another Bethsaida.) Comp, on Matthew 14:22; Mark 6:45.

Welcomed them. This hints at what is more fully stated by Mark (Mark 6:34.) The account of the miracle itself presents no new details; but it is significant that Luke, who says nothing of the second feeding of the four thousand, uses the word for baskets (Luke 9:17), which all three Evangelists employ in telling of this miracle, and not the one which Matthew and Mark each uses twice in speaking of the other miracle. This is the more remarkable, as we have four accounts of the one miracle, two of the other, and two allusions to both. In all this distinction is preserved. This miracle, so profound in its meaning, the only one mentioned by all the Evangelists, is the rock on which all destructive criticism makes shipwreck. Where God would give bread, such critics find a stone, a stone of stumbling.