Mark 6:41

And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:30-44 Let not ministers do any thing or teach any thing, but what they are willing should be told to their Lord. Christ notices the frights of some, and the toils of others of his disciples, and provides rest for those that are tired, and refuge for those that are terrified. The people sought the spiritual food of Christ's word, and then he took care that they should not want bodily food. If Christ and his disciples put up with mean things, surely we may. And this miracle shows that Christ came into the world, not only to restore, but to preserve and nourish spiritual life; in him there is enough for all that come. None are sent empty away from Christ but those who come to him full of themselves. Though Christ had bread enough at command, he teaches us not to waste any of God's bounties, remembering how many are in want. We may, some time, need the fragments that we now throw away.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In ranks - Literally, in the form of square beds in a garden. By regularly formed companies.

By hundreds and by fifties - Some companies had a hundred in them, and some groupings had fifty in them. We do not need to suppose that these were "exactly" formed or arranged, but that this was approximately the number. The expression indicates a "multitude." There were so many that they sat down, by "hundreds" and by "fifties," in separate companies, upon the green grass.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

41. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven—Thus would the most distant of them see distinctly what He was doing.

and blessed—John (Joh 6:11) says, "And when he had given thanks." The sense is the same. This thanksgiving for the meal, and benediction of it as the food of thousands, was the crisis of the miracle.

and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them—thus virtually holding forth these men as His future ministers.

and the two fishes divided he among them all.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Mark 6:34"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And when he had taken the five loaves and two fishes,.... Out of the hands of those that brought them into his own:

he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves: See Gill on Matthew 14:19,

and gave them to his disciples to set before them; the multitude, in order to eat of them:

and the two fishes divided he among them all; that every one might have a part. The Syriac and Persic versions read, they divided; that is, the apostles.

Geneva Study Bible

And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

41. and blessed] The words, though not given, were probably those of the ordinary grace before meat in use in Israel. “He gives thanks to God, as the father surrounded by his household was on the occasion of the Passover wont to do, for His natural gifts and covenant blessings. This action is made almost equally prominent in each of the four Narratives, and after the thanksgiving, He distributed the food, as the father was accustomed to do at the Paschal meal.” See note on Mark 14:16.

and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples] The first of these words denotes an instantaneous, the second a continuous act. The multiplication of the loaves and fishes had a beginning and went on in the hands of Christ between the acts of breaking and distributing the bread. Comp. 2 Kings 4:42-44.

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 6:41. Πᾶσι, all) All partook even of the accompaniment, the fish: even of it also remnants were left, Mark 6:43; [which, as a fish consists of very different parts, is therefore less intelligible to mere reason, than the multiplication of the bread.—V. g.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 41. - All the synoptists give our Lord's acts in the same words. The taking of the food into the hands would seem to have been a formal act before the" blessing," or "giving of thanks," for it. Probably our Lord used the ordinary form of benediction. This is one amongst other instances showing the fitness and propriety of" grace before meat." In considering the miraculous action which followed the benediction, our reason is baffled. It eludes our grasp. It is best simply to behold in this multiplying of the food, both the bread and the fishes, an act of Divine omnipotence; not indeed now, as at the beginning, a creation out of nothing, for here there was the nucleus of the five loaves and the two fishes, but an act of creative development of the food in its best kind; for all the works of God are perfect, He gave (ἐδίδου) would be better rendered, he was giving. It was in his hands that the miracle was wrought, and the food continually multiplied. Mark 6:41

Vincent's Word Studies

Brake and gave (κατέκλασεν, ἐδίδου)

The verbs are in different tenses; the former in the aorist, the latter in the imperfect. The aorist implies the instantaneous, the imperfect the continuous act. He brake, and kept giving out. Farrar remarks that the multiplication evidently took place in Christ's hands, between the acts of breaking and distributing.

All

Peculiar to Mark.

Were filled

See on Matthew 5:6.