And when it was evening. — The narrative that follows is, in many ways, one of the most important in the Gospel narratives. (1.) It is the only miracle recorded by all the four Evangelists, and thus is practically one of the chief data for interweaving the supplemental narrative of St. John with that of the other three. (2.) It was the fullest manifestation of the sovereignty of the Son of Man over the world of nature. The act was distinctly, if we accept the facts of the case, one of creative power, and does not admit. as some of the works of healing might seem to do, of being explained away as the result of strong faith or excited imagination on the part of those who were its objects. The only rationalising explanation which has ever been offered — viz., that our Lord by His example, in offering the five loaves and the two fishes for the use of others than His own company of the Twelve, stirred the multitude to bring out the little store which, till then, each man in his selfish anxiety had kept concealed — is ludicrously inadequate. The narrative must be accepted or rejected as a whole; and if accepted, it is, as we have said, a proof of supernatural, if not absolutely of divine, power. (3.) No narrative of any other miracle offers so many marks of naturalness, both in the vividness of colouring with which it is told, and the coincidences, manifestly without design, which it presents to us. It is hardly possible to imagine four independent writers — independent, even if two of them were derived from a common source — reproducing, in this way, a mere legend. (4.) The nature of this evidence will be seen in all its strength by combining the facts of the four records as we proceed. (5.) The miracle was important, as we see from John 6, on account of its dogmatic symbolism. It became the text of the dialogue at Capernaum in which (not to anticipate the Notes on the fourth Gospel) communion with the life of Christ was shadowed forth under the figure of eating the flesh of Him who is the true Bread from heaven.
His disciples came to him. — In St. John’s narrative, Philip and Andrew are prominent as speakers, and our Lord puts to the former the question, “Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?” As Philip and Andrew both belonged to one of the Bethsaidas, their local knowledge made the question natural. It was apparently after this private conversation that the main body of the disciples came to their Master beseeching Him to dismiss the multitude that they might buy food in the nearest villages. They were met by what must have seemed to them the marvellous calmness of the answer: “They need not depart, give ye them to eat.” Philip’s rough estimate having been passed on to the others, they answer that it would take two hundred pennyworth of bread (the Roman penny, as a coin, was worth 7½d. of our money, but its value is better measured by its being the average day’s wages of a soldier or labourer, Matthew 20:2) to feed so great a number (Mark 6:37; John 6:7). Then Jesus asks them, “How many loaves have ye?” and Andrew (John 6:8), as the spokesman of the others, replies that they have found a lad with five loaves (barley loaves, in St. John, the food of the poor) and two fishes.