Mark 8:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

MARK CHAPTER 8 Mark 8:1-9 Christ miraculously feedeth four thousand persons. Mark 8:10-13 He refuseth the Pharisees a sign. Mark 8:14-21 He warns his disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, and explains his meaning. Mark 8:22-26 He giveth a blind man sight. Mark 8:27-30 The people's opinions, and Peter's confession, of him. Mark 8:31-33 He foreshows his own death, and rebukes Peter for dissuading him from it. Mark 8:34-38 He shows his followers that they must deny themselves, and not be ashamed of him and his gospel. Ver. 1-9. These verses give us an account of another miracle wrought by our Saviour, of the same nature with the one which we had in Mark 6:30-44; only there five thousand (besides women and children) were fed with five loaves and two fishes, here four thousand are fed with seven loaves and a few fishes; there twelve baskets full of fragments were taken up, here but seven. We meet with the same history in Matthew 15:32-38; See Poole on "Matthew 15:32", and following verses to Matthew 15:38. Both miracles testified Christ to have acted by a Divine power, and were certainly wrought to prove that the doctrine which he delivered to them was from God; both of them show the compassion that he had for the sons of men, showed to them not only with relation to their spiritual, but also to their corporal wants and infirmities. In both of them is commended to us, from his great example, the religious custom of begging a blessing upon our food when we sit down to it, and receiving the good creatures of God with thanksgiving. From both of them we may learn, in the doing of our duty, not to be too solicitous what we shall eat, or what we shall drink. God will some way or other provide for those who neglect themselves to follow him. From both we may also learn our duty to take a provident care to make no waste of the good things which God lends us. These are the chief things this history affords us for our instruction.