The miraculous feeding of the a very large number of people in the wilderness is one miracle that is told in each of the four canonical gospels. Despite the consistency of the narrative there are, in every age, those who reject the miraculous (Jesus inspired the people to share) or dismiss the narrative as apocryphal – or at best an altered memory of a large feast that imaged the coming banquet of the Kingdom. Keener (403) points out that nothing would be more memorable than a feeding miracle, especially in the context of the culture of their day. Keener offers four points:

1. First, the disciples were right to be concerned about the people’s hunger but intended to solve the problem in a purely natural way (e.g. 1 Kings 17:16 and 2 Kings 4:43). Our expectations of what God can do often are too small; providing food in the wilderness was technically impossible, but God had used Moses, Elijah and Elisha for feeding miracles.
2. Second, like God of the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus takes what his servants bring to him and multiplies it. (Ex 4:1-3; 2 Kings 4:1-7)
3. Third, God does miracles only when his people need them – and the need is very evident in this wilderness area.
4. Fourth, sharing is not the narrative thrust of Matthew’s writing. The ending points to thing outside and beyond the people present: (a) we are not to be intimidates by the magnitude of the problem because God is with us, and (b) the surprising leftovers point to the continuation of this miracle (greater than manna which had no leftovers) into the Apostolic Age.

When Jesus heard of it he withdrew (v.13). News if John’s imprisonment by Antipas and now the report of John’s death has the same effect. As in 12:15 and 15:21 the withdrawal takes him away from a place of danger or confrontation. A direct confrontation with Antipas would not advance Jesus’ mission and, in the light of what had happened to John, was a risk to be avoided, especially in view of Antipas’ view of Jesus as a new John.

Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is seeking not just safety but also solitude for himself and his disciples. The disciples are not mentioned at this point, but their presence is always assumed when Matthew speaks of Jesus traveling (not least by boat, which needed a crew), and they will be present in v. 15. In the meantime the “neighborhood wire” is active, passing along the news that Jesus of Nazareth in the area – and the crowds gather. Despite Jesus’ desire for solitude, he is now too popular to escape notice.

his heart was moved with pity for them(v.14). Given the sense in which “pity” is used in American English, many translations are opting for the appropriate “compassion.” Remember that Jesus’ short term objective was solitude and prayer. Yet his response is compassion for the people who have come to see him (whatever their motives) and are without food. It is the response of God to his people, and perhaps as importantly, it is the response of the Good Samaritan, the one who discerns God’s call to carry out God’s will. It is the response to the very human situation.

“This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” The disciples are right to be concerned. Few towns were nearby, and towns were generally small, at most accommodating only a few visitors in towns of a few thousand people. Further, most of the day’s bread would be consumed by evening (Mt 14:15). It would have been nearly impossible for roughly ten thousand people (five thousand men plus women and children-v. 21) to fend for themselves in the countryside.

Given the numbers involved Jesus’ response, “You give them something to eat,” must have seemed like a hollow joke; cf. Elisha’s similar command to his servant, 2 Kings 4:42–43. Even their own provisions of five loaves and two fish are not enough for a group of thirteen. So had they been expecting to find hospitality (as in 10:9–13) somewhere nearby, despite the loneliness of the area? If so, the arrival of the large crowd had upset their calculations. To surrender even this meager provision to Jesus was either an act of reckless obedience or evidence of a more confident faith in Jesus than we have seen the disciples displaying elsewhere.

Notes

Matthew 14:13–21 – general: The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus that is recounted in all four gospels. The principal reason for that may be that it was seen as anticipating the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom (Mt 8:11; 26:29), but it looks not only forward but backward, to the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert at the time of the Exodus (Ex 16), a miracle that in some contemporary Jewish expectation would be repeated in the messianic age (2 Bar 29:8). It may also be meant to recall Elisha’s feeding a hundred men with small provisions (2 Kgs 4:42–44).

Matthew 14:13 a deserted place: erēmom, wilderness

Matthew 14:14 had pity on them: esplanchenisthē, to have compassion. A word used in Matthew and Luke to indicate the compassion of God for humans, or as in the case of the Good Samaritan, people to gauge and discern the will of God and take that same action in the world.