43.-ANOTHER MIRACULOUS MEAL
“In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they had nothing to eat, he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way; and some of them are come from far. And his disciples answered him, Whence shall one be able to fill these men with bread here in a desert place? And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he commandeth the multitude to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he brake, and gave to his disciples, to set before them. And they set them before the multitude. And they had a few small fishes, and having blessed them, he commanded to set these also before them. And they did eat, and were filled; and they took up, of broken pieces that remained over, seven baskets. And they were about four thousand: and he sent them away. And straightway he entered into the boat with his disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanutha” (8:1-10 R.V.).
The first two only of the Evangelists record that on a second occasion our Lord multiplied a few loaves, and therewith fed a great concourse of Galileans. Taught the gospel of the kingdom and fed by the King, these people may, in a sense, be said to have tasted, “the good word of God and the powers of the world to come.” For the two miracles constitute a double testimony to the coming blessing for the chosen nation under the direct rule of their Messiah—that time of relief from weary toil of which the great Year of jubilee was a type. The terms of the institution of this feast provided that while the people of Israel were not to sow nor to reap, yet they should “eat their fill,” and the children of the strangers sojourning in their land should likewise participate in the special bounties of the year (Lev. 25:8-55).The blissful era of the anti-typical jubilee is always in Old Testament prophecy associated with the reign of the Seed of David. The ancient men of God lived in joyous anticipation of the day when David's Son and David's Lord shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth, and when the blessings of sinless Eden shall be restored to mankind in a multiplied fullness.
As we read of the Lord taking in His hands the few loaves which were to satisfy the multitude before Him, do we not hear again these picturesque words of the millennial psalm: “there shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains: the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon” (Psa. 72:16)? For in the regeneration the primal penalty upon Adam and his race “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen. 3:19) —shall be displaced, and the tree of life, yielding month by month her twelve manner of fruits, shall be constant evidence that the curse has gone from the ground forever (Rev. 22:2, 3). Of that day of abundance the Lord gave a pledge to the few Galileans before Him when, without waiting with long patience for the precious fruits of the earth, their hunger was satisfied by the bounty multiplied a thousand fold before their very eyes.
THE WEARY AND HUNGRY CROWD
The miracle was performed in the Decapolitan district which lies to the northward of the Sea of Galilee. The population of this neighborhood was numerous, and their race of a mixed character, giving rise to the term, “Galilee of the Gentiles.” There the Lord healed the deaf-mute who was one of a great company of persons, diversely afflicted, also brought to Him and restored to health. There, also, it would seem, the Lord “taught” those assembled, instructing them in the new kingdom-doctrines. Attracted by the sweetness of those lips of heavenly knowledge, they tarried and tarried around Him for three days, nor was He loth to continue His ministry.
The great multitude had assembled from far and near to see the works and hear the words of Jesus. These sheep of Israel and also other sheep not of that fold were “consumed with hunger in the land.” For the Pharisees and scribes were hireling shepherds, and their days were like those of which the prophet Amos wrote, saying, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11, 12). Is it any wonder, then, that the crowds listened with untiring eagerness to the words of life from Jehovah's diligent Servant who spoke with authority and love, not as the scribes, nor indeed as any other man? How many of them, listening to the divine utterances, felt, though they could not express it as the Psalmist had already expressed it for them in the fullness and beauty of that stanza: “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psa. 19:10). At any rate, they thought not of departure from Him, but waited for Him to conclude His discourses and His healings, and to dismiss them to their homes.
This attentiveness on the part of the simple peasantry of Northern Galilee to His heavenly message was surely gratifying to the soul of the Great Teacher, burning in His zeal that they might “hear,” and their souls live. He beheld a great company round Him, imbued to a degree with that fine spirit of the patriarch who said, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).
But the Lord Jesus, while joying to serve them with the wonders of divine mercy and truth, marked their physical faintness. The bodily exertions of bringing their numerous invalids to the Great Physician, their excited joy at the recoveries, and the mental strain of attention to the prolonged discourses had a reactionary effect upon the physical condition of the great crowd. This weakness the Lord saw and pitied, for He who healed their diseases and forgave their sins knew their frame also, and remembered that they were dust. Was He not among them as the Servant of Jehovah, who was a God full of compassion and gracious (Psa. 111:4)? Nay, was He not Himself Jehovah, gracious and full of compassion? (Psa. 113:4; 145:8). According to the multitude of His mercies, therefore, His heart yearned over their frailty, and He purposed in Himself to satisfy their mouth with good things and renew their strength for their journey home.
The people were weary with listening, and foodless; but was not the Lord Himself weary with speaking and serving them throughout those three days? The Blessed Master, however, had come not to be ministered unto but to minister. He was most truly that Servant raised up to Israel “like unto Moses,” to whom the people in the wilderness came daily with their problems, and “stood by him from morning unto evening"? But in Galilee there was no Jethro to remonstrate with Jesus, and in love, if not in intelligence, to warn Him: “Thou wilt surely wear away... this thing is too heavy for thee” (Ex. 18:18). Consumed with zeal for the Father's will, the Lord was the Ideal Servant of God, flawless in perfection and glory. Paul spoke truly of his own ministry in the gospel carried on “in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor. 11:27); but in all these respects he was but an imperfect imitator of the self-denying service of Christ, sustained in his devotion, however, like Him, by that secret food of which the world knows not (John 4:31-34).
THE LORD'S CALL FOR CO-WORKERS
The Lord then beheld this great company of famished men, women and children, with a full knowledge of the physical infirmities, the mental anxieties, and the spiritual cravings that brought them to His feet, of their reception of His ministry during the three days, and of the extent of the journey home. In the spontaneity of His love for them, His heart overflowed with compassion, and He who looked in vain for some to take pity upon Himself in His sufferings sought to awaken the sympathy of His disciples in the needy condition of this people. The Lord called His disciples to Him, and spoke to them, for He would not have them see their brethren in need, and shut up the “bowels of their compassion” against them, as if the love of God did not dwell in their hearts. He said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their homes they will faint by the way; and some of them are come from far.”
But there was no sympathetic response on the part of the disciples. They, under the influence of Jewish prejudice possibly, expressed no pity for the people, and offered no suggestion for their help. Could the memory of the Lord's former goodness in feeding the seven thousand under similar circumstances have altogether gone from them? It would seem so. Helpless themselves, they utterly failed to realize what an inexhaustible fund of help there was in the Savior. The disciples had yet much to learn. When the Great Shepherd of the sheep was brought again from the dead, then they, as under-shepherds, would be responsible to “feed the assembly of God which he purchased with his own blood.” Then the same voice would come to them with a new significance, “Give ye them to eat,” and then they would not fail in the exercise of the ministry allotted to them.
The Lord had said to the disciples, “I would not send them away fasting” (Matt. 15:32), but they reply, “Whence shall one be able to satisfy these men with bread here in a desert place?” Foolish forgetfulness and unbelief! Whence was food given for the tribes of Israel in the deserts of Sinai? whence was it supplied to a similar company only a few weeks earlier, and not so many miles away? They themselves had wrought many mighty works in the name of the Lord (Mark 6:13), but while they must have known that divine power had been exercised in other circumstances, they failed to remember that divine power might be applied in this instance, and their captious words were not like the words of apostles. Even Satan knew that the Lord had but to command it, and the very stones would become bread.
THE KING SERVING AT HIS TABLE
The Lord thereupon called upon the disciples to mobilize their resources, saying to them, “How many loaves have ye?” He was about to illustrate before their eyes His own adage, “To him that hath shall be given.” They answer, Seven. And these loaves the Lord took as a nucleus of the food-supply for the people. He did not as of old call down bread out of heaven, but He made use of what came out of the earth (Job 28:5). To this fruit of human toil, already multiplied from the bare grain, He gave a further increase.
After Himself commanding the people to sit down on the ground (on the previous occasion the disciples were told to do this) the Lord took the loaves in His hands, and in consequence all eyes would be fastened upon Him. All the people would know that their food was coming to them from His hand. Would David's song of praise have occurred to any of them? “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom... The LORD upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing” (Psa. 145:13-16; also 104:27).
While the eyes of the multitude were waiting upon the Lord, they could but observe that His eyes were upturned to heaven, as He gave thanks. Had He not taught His disciples to pray to their Father in heaven, and in addition to petitions of a spiritual order to say, “Give us this day our daily bread"? Now He who had taught to pray for daily sustenance teaches by example to tender thanks for the same.
The Lord who was the Guest of Simon the Pharisee and of Simon the leper and of many others, sometimes welcome, sometimes, alas! unwelcome, acted as Host on that day to the great assembly. He it was who broke the bread. The disciples, as stewards of His bounty, distributed from His hand the broken pieces to the multitude, who ate and were satisfied.
Besides the loaves, there were a few small fishes. These the Lord also took and blessed, and the disciples passed them to the people. Thus He provided bread and fish for their repast, as after His resurrection He did for the seven apostles in Galilee (John 21 g). It was not then the day of the glory of the kingdom. When that day comes, He, as Melchidezek, will dispense bread and wine to the men of faith. When the ark is brought to its final resting-place in Mount Zion, the Lord will re-enact, but far exceed the bounty of David, who gave “to the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine” (2 Sam. 6:17-19). But the joy of full victory over the sin of the world was still future; hence the Lord said to His disciples on the night of His betrayal, “I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom” (Matt. 26:29). He also said, “Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching. Verily, I say unto you that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and come and serve them” (Luke 12:37).
THE RICHES OF THE LORD'S GOODNESS
The word “riches” conveys the idea of an excess of supplies beyond the bare necessity. The rich man of the parable, for instance, required larger barns wherein to store the goods not immediately in demand for passing needs. As applied to men and to their actions and possessions, riches must be understood in its limited sense, and but seldom in a good sense. For the Lord said that only with great difficulty can those that have riches enter the kingdom of heaven.
On the other hand the dealings and ways of God manward are ever characterized by richness and riches. Both His grace and His glory are revealed to men in their riches (Eph. 1:7; 3:16). And the Lord Christ in His unsearchable riches is rich unto all that call upon Him (Eph. 3:8; Rom. 10:12). Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and the free gifts of God are ever bestowed in overflowing profusion.
That affluence which marks the act which is purely divine was witnessed by the crowds that day in Galilee. The beneficent Power that causes the sower's grain to yield a hundredfold multiplied the seven loaves and the fishes until every one of the thousands present was satisfied, and even then there was abundance to spare. For “they did eat and were filled,” and gathered up of the broken pieces sufficient to fill seven large hampers.
This miracle was a great and a special exhibition of the active love of God in a selfish world, and it would be worth while, in our private meditation, if we did not hurry past this beautiful picture of the grace of Christ who, though He was rich yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich. It was in the days of His “poverty,” that our Lord gave these instances of divine compassion. He Himself, the Son of David, knew hunger outside the gates of royal Zion (Mark 11:12), and at Sychar weariness and thirst also ( John 4:6, 7), as well as in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2). Humbled thus, bearing their infirmities and carrying their sorrows, He pitied the hungry and weary throng before Him on this occasion, while the people themselves found abundant grace in Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth, to help in time of need.
There is none good save One, that is, God, said our Lord, and in the bountiful meal of His free provision, these Galileans beheld a vivid illustration of what the apostle in a striking verse calls the riches of the goodness of God. Appealing to those who neglect such evidences, Paul inquires, “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance"? (Rom. 2:4).
W. J. H.
(Continued from page 112) (To be continued)