‘In those days, when there was a great crowd and there was nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and says to them.'
The gathering of the great crowd is explicable in terms of the spreading of the news of the healing of the deaf and dumb man (Mark 7:36), and probable subsequent healings which would inevitably follow His growing reputation, possibly enhanced by the witness and remarkable change in the ex-demoniac described in Mark 5:20. However the connection is loose and we need not think that the one incident immediately followed the other, although the one is certainly the final consequence of the other, and what followed from it. Mark clearly intends us to see that this was also was in Decapolis. (Furthermore this is supported by the fact that in Mark 8:10 they cross to Dalmanutha and in Mark 8:22 return to Decapolis).
‘There was nothing to eat.' The crowd had been with Him for three days and had run out of food. So Jesus turned to His disciples. He saw it as their responsibility to meet the needs of the people as He had done previously (Mark 6:37).