Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 4 Study # 8
January 18, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(278)
1901 ASV
6:41 And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake the loaves; and he gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.
6:42 And they all ate, and were filled.
6:43 And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes.
6:44 And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men.
- I. Jesus, Having Taken The Five Loaves And The Two Fish, Having Looked Into The Heaven, "Blessed"...
- A. Attending participles are just that; not declarations of indicative actions. Jesus, "having taken" (aorist participle in the nominative case) is a preliminary description of an action that preceded the actual verbal idea (...He blessed...). Robertson calls participles "verbal adjectives". The fact is, that even though there is a verbal idea in view, it is subjected to a "descriptive" status in being relegated to a "lower status" than the primary verb. The same is true of the next "verbal adjective" ("having looked up"). In order to properly understand the main verbal idea, we must look at other verbal ideas as enhancements that exalt the action of the main verb so that its action is more significant than it would be sans the "enhancements".
- B. The "taking" of the bread and fish...
- 1. These two factors were all that the disciples "discovered" of what was available in this specific situation under the insistence that "they" provide the crowd with something to eat. That it was woefully inadequate goes quite without saying.
- 2. "Taking" the food into His hands "positions" that which is "woefully inadequate" to be used by Him, the Mighty One, i.e., "Elohim" Who, without any bread or fish, or any other thing, "created by His Word" and by nothing else.
- C. The "look into the heaven"...
- 1. anablepo (intensive form of blepo) is sometimes used in the New Testament to refer to someone "looking up" but, in the majority of cases, "sight" is given so that the upward look brings normal vision ("sight").
- 2. In the case of Mark's use of this intensified verb (six of them), 6:41 is the first and it strongly implies that Jesus' upward look meant He was signaling that He was getting His ability from that Source. This is the same implication in 7:34, but it is attended by a "deep sigh" from Jesus that might have been caused by His understanding that His action was going to result in some things that were counter to His wishes. In 8:24 a blind man can only see with things seriously out of focus when he first "looked up" after Jesus had applied spittle to his eyes and laid His hands upon him. In 10:51-52 Jesus made a blind man capable of seeing and he is said to have "gained his sight". And in the last use (16:4) the women going to the tomb, "looked up" and saw that the stone had been rolled away (the "upward look" being rooted in their question, "Who shall roll the stone away for us?" In Jesus' case in our text, it seems most likely that He was giving "the 'Elohim' of Heaven" the credit for what He was about to do; this is a strong implication that He was "doing the will of Him Who rules heaven" (John 8:28).
- 3. In twelve of the eighteen references to "heaven" in Mark's record, the meaning is "that heaven in which God dwells".
- II. What Jesus Actually Did.
- A. There are two basic verbs describing Jesus' actions.
- B. Mark's use of "blessed" indicates the role of the "feeding of both massive crowds" in chapters 6 and 8 in establishing His identity as "Christ".
- 1. The third use (after 6:41 and 8:7 in respect to the two "feedings") is 11:9 in which the 'triumphal entry' crowd on Palm Sunday is "shouting", "...blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord...", and in the fourth use in 11:10 they are "shouting", "...blessed the coming kingdom of our father, David...". Clearly the crowd is identifying Jesus as the prophesied Davidic King, i.e. "the Christ". This is in close harmony with the prophecy of Daniel that as soon as The Christ is properly identified, He shall be "cut off" and have nothing (Daniel 9:26). Within the week that Jesus is publicly identified by the crowds of Jerusalem, He is crucified.
- 2. And Mark's last use is in 14:22 wherein Jesus "blesses" the "Bread" that is "His Body" and the disciples "eat" it.
- C. Mark's use of "broke" (kataklao), used only twice in the entire New Testament, is curious.
- 1. It is an intensified form of klao, which is used in 14 texts/contexts in the New Testament In Matthew's record it is used instead of kataklao in his record of this same event (14:19); it is used also in his record of the feeding of the four thousand (15:36), and in his record of the eating of the bread in the Passover the night He was betrayed, "the last supper" (26:26). In Mark's record it is used twice in reference to these miraculous provisions of bread, once in regard to the feeding of the four thousand (8:6) and once in regard to the feeding of the five thousand (8:19); and he uses it in 14:22 in reference to "the last supper". Luke only uses it twice; once in his record of "the last supper" (22:19) and once in the record of Jesus' revealing of Himself to the disciples on the road to Emmaus by the "breaking" of bread (24:30). In Acts, Luke used the word four times, three of which have to do with the Church's "breaking of bread" (commemoration of "the last supper"; in 2:46; 20:7; and 20:11), and once before the ship wreck on the way to Rome (27:35). Paul used the word only twice (1 Corinthians 10:16 and 11:24) and both times in reference to "the last supper".
- 2. The question is obvious: why did Mark and Luke both depart from the normal verb in favor of the intensified form, which is, itself, only (as we remarked above) found in Mark 6:41 and Luke 9:16?
- a. If a person buys into Jesus' theology of "not one jot or tittle will pass away", it cannot be a simple "style" issue. This "theology" is intensified by Jesus in Luke 16:17 where He says, "...it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the Law to fail".
- b. If we understand the feeding of the five thousand "men" as a "harbinger" of the fruitfulness of the Gospel seed, it comes as no surprise that Luke records that the number of "men" in the Church in Acts 4:4 came to be "about five thousand".
- c. Thus, there was a good reason for Mark and Luke to intensify Jesus' "breaking" of the bread for the sake of 5,000 "men" since that "breaking" was specifically referring to the symbolism of Jesus' body being "broken" by the cross (though not one bone of that body was broken). Intensely "breaking" the bread was Jesus' way of pre-figuring the "breaking" of His body for the Church. It was no "common" breakage; it was intense. Given that the "bread" (food for the "men") is likened unto the green grass (food for sheep that have a shepherd), the parallel is remarkable. What was "harbinger" in the analogy of the green grass is now "reality" as "five thousand men" make up the Church through the proclamation of "the Word".
