‘One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, says to him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fishes, but what are they among so many.”
This verse brings out that there were a number of the Apostles involved in the conversation, all no doubt bringing up the same problem. It was very hot. It was a deserted place. And the few villages around would simply not be able to provide sufficient food. Some of the crowd had probably already become concerned.
‘Five barley loaves, and two fishes.' Possibly the lad had approached intending to offer them to Jesus as an indication of his love for Him, and Andrew's remark, as he brought them up, connects with discussions taking place among the disciples. It may even be a remark of wry hopelessness - ‘look, this is all we have got'. But with this small repast, (the ‘loaves' would be small rolls), Jesus could feed a great crowd. It is a parallel miracle with turning the water into wine, the act of the Creator towards His creation. Ample was provided and ample was left over, and the people were filled and satisfied.
‘Five barley loaves.' This was the food of the poor. Only John brings out that they were barley loaves. He remembers the scene vividly. It is a comment by someone who knew the food of Palestine well.
‘Two fishes', ‘duo opsaria'. ‘Opsaria' refers specifically to cooked fish eaten with bread. No specific attention is drawn to the fish in the application of the incident.
John remembers that they were barley loaves and he partly mentions it because it will bring to mind the story of how Elisha fed one hundred men on twenty barley loaves with some remaining (2 Kings 4:42-44). Here then was a greater than Elisha. Barley loaves were the food of the poor, but Jesus was able to make of them into a Messianic feast.
It is interesting that suddenly we are hearing of some of the twelve again by name for the first time since John 1. It may well be that most of them have not participated in the Judean incidents. It is a mistake to assume that they all went about with Jesus from the first, as is clear from the fact that, apart from Philip, their call to ‘follow me' came later rather than earlier (Luke 5:11). This was probably because Jesus refused to call those who were disciples of John until John himself was in prison.