Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadLange Commentary - Luke 9:10 - 9:17
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
ÂçèóáúäÜ .—Not the western (Winer, De Wette), but another town of this name on the northeastern shore of the lake, belonging to the province of Philip, who had given it the name Julias, and had considerably embellished it. Built near the shore at the place where the Jordan pours itself into the lake of Tiberias, it was surrounded by a desolate region which now, however, in the spring, was covered with a carpet of grass, large enough to receive a numerous throng. Thither does the Saviour proceed with the disciples, according to Matthew and Mark, in a ship, while Luke does not say that He goes by land (Meyer), but leaves the mode of the journey entirely undetermined. Apparently Capernaum was the place where the Saviour and the Twelve had, after the return of the latter, met one another again.
Luk_9:11. Followed Him.—As appears from Matthew and Mark, on foot by the land-way after they had seen Him depart, taking also sick persons with them, who were healed by Jesus. Von Ammon draws from the statement that these sick people also had come on foot, the conclusion that they could not, after all, have been so very sick; as though blind or deaf people, who could travel very well, might not have been among them; and as though the others who were not capable of walking, might not have been carried.
Luk_9:12. And when the day.—Here we must insert especially from Mark and John the preceding circumstances and deliberations which Luke, in his more summary account, passes over for the sake of brevity.
That they may go.—This demand of the disciples to send the multitude away, does not speak favorably for the view that the people had brought a tolerably large provision of their own with them, to the common distribution of which they were about to be prompted.
Luk_9:13. Give ye.—“With emphasis, for previously they had counselled to let the people get food for themselves.” Meyer.
Should go and buy.—It is self-evident that this whole language of the disciples is only the expression of the most pitiable perplexity, which had no other means at command. Whoever can assert in earnest that the disciples now actually did buy food with two hundred denarii, and then distributed it (Von Ammon), appears to expect that men are going to believe his rationalistic triflings at his word, without demanding any further proofs therefor.
Luk_9:14. By fifties.—We find no sufficient reason to insert ὡóåß (Lachmann). “Numerus commodus propter quinarium panum.” Bengel.
Luk_9:16. Blessed, åὐëüãçóåí .—According to Jewish usage before the beginning of a meal. Here it becomes in the fullest sense of the word a miraculous blessing, whereby the deed of Almighty love is brought to pass. Between Matthew and Mark there exists no actual difference. It is noticeable that all four Evangelists take note of the act of prayer.
The Miracle Itself.—The miracle of the Loaves is certainly one of those whose possibility is quite as hard to bring within the sphere of our comprehension as its form within the sphere of our conception. See statement and criticism of the different views in Lange on Mat_14:20. So much the less can we overlook the fact that the external proofs of the reality of the miracle are so unanimous and decisive that concerning them scarcely a doubt is possible. It cannot be denied that the relative diversities of the individual accounts are less essential (Strauss). In the main points all the Evangelists give the same account, and he difficulties of the mythical explanation are here in fact insuperable. Or is perchance the whole historical narration to be taken as a mere symbol of the evangelical idea that Christ is the bread of eternal life? (Von Baur). As if this idea could not have been expressed and stated as well in a fact! How, then, would the enthusiasm of the people be explicable, and the mutual discourse, John 6, which is connected with this miracle, and, moreover, the great schism which in consequence of it took place among the ìáèçôáß , John 6? No, this very point is the great proof for the reality of the miracle, that it is indispensably necessary in order satisfactorily to explain the decrease then beginning in the following of Jesus. So far something had here taken place similar to that at the Lord’s resurrection; and this, at least, becomes immediately obvious, that here something must have taken place by which the great revolution in so many minds is sufficiently explained. Up to this day we see the following of Jesus increasing: He stands before us, as it were, on the steps of the throne, Joh_6:15; a few hours later, the enthusiasm has cooled and the throng of His followers noticeably diminished. Only a miracle like this could have roused so intense an expectation, and, when this expectation on the following day was not fulfilled, so great a bitterness as we have account of, especially in the fourth Gospel.
With this, however, we do not mean that we are blind to the difficulties which offer themselves here, even from a believing point of view. We can as little represent to ourselves that the fragments of bread had multiplied themselves in the hands of the people as in those of the disciples; and even if we make the miracle to have taken place immediately by the Saviour’s own hands, we can as little conceive continually growing loaves as continually reappearing fish; and although one should speak of a quickened process of nature (Olshausen; a representation, moreover, of which there is found an indication even in Luther), yet there is little gained by this, since, indeed, it appears no process of nature, but a process of art, to multiply in a miraculous way baked bread and cooked fish. Here one feels, more than ever, how difficult it is to enter in any way into transaction with the inconceivable, since, after all, everything finally depends upon our conception of God, upon our Christology, and upon the credibility of the evangelical history. Yet, on the other hand, we must not pass over the fact that the Saviour here by no means makes something out of nothing, but out of that already existing makes something more, and does not, therefore, pass the limits which the Incarnate Word has fixed for Himself, and that it could not be for Him too miraculous to raise Himself, if need were, over the artificial processes of preparing bread and fish for human use. We may call to mind, at the same time, that the ethical receptivity for this miracle must have existed in the people in consequence of all which they had this day already seen and heard of the Lord, and by which their faith had been first awakened, or their already awakened faith had been strengthened. And inasmuch as we now believe ourselves obliged to follow the example of the Evangelists, who do not more particularly describe the form of the miracle, we at the same time rejoice that the sublimity and the purpose of this sign are beyond all doubt. But if Christian science believes itself obliged to go a step further, and to venture an attempt to seek a modal, or perhaps a mystic, medium of bringing into effect what here took place, then certainly the profoundly-conceived attempt of Lange, L. J. ii., S. 309, deserves a careful examination. Comp. his remarks upon it in the Gospel of John.
2. The miracle of the Loaves is one of the most striking proofs of the truth of the word of the Lord to Philip, Joh_14:9. We admire here in the Saviour a veritably Divine might which speaks and it is done; in virtue of which He, in higher measure and from His own fulness of might, can repeat what in the Old Testament had already, in smaller measure, been brought to pass by prophets and at Divine command. (Comp. the manna-rain of Moses, and the multiplication of food by Elijah and Elisha.) Besides deep wisdom, which helps at the right time and by the simplest means, we see here, at the same time, in Jesus, the image of the God of peace (1Co_14:33), inasmuch as He takes care for the orderly division of the multitude and for the preservation of the fragments remaining. More than all, however, does His compassion attract us, which has at heart the fate of the unfortunate, which, with tenderest attention, chooses even the softest place for couch and table, and with ungrudging wealth bestows not only what is absolutely necessary, but also more than what is necessary. This whole miracle must serve as proof how He, like the Father, can out of little make much, and bless what is of little account. Above all, however, it is an image of the great truth which He the following day so powerfully develops (John 6), that He is the bread of eternal life.
3. The miracle of the Loaves is the faithful miracle of the way in which the Saviour satisfies the spiritual necessities of His own; but at the same time with all that is extraordinary, the concurrence of this miracle with the continuous care of Providence for the bodily support of its human children, is unmistakable. The whole narrative of the miracle is a practical commentary on the declaration, Psa_145:15-16.
Starke:—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Who loves Jesus follows Him even through rough ways.—Quesnel:—God lets us first recognize our human impotence before He displays His omnipotence.—Spiritual shepherds should feed their sheep.—By gold one can obtain all perishable goods, but the rich God can throw to us all that we need, even when we have little or no money.—It is to the Almighty Saviour all one to help by little or by much. Upon that, faith can venture all. 1Sa_14:6.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—No one should imagine himself too good or too high to serve the needy.—Brentius:—In distress of hunger, the best refuge is to Christ.—God’s blessing one must not lavish away at once, but lay up for future need. Pro_11:27.—Heubner:—To be agents in the distribution of Divine gifts, like the disciples here, is a high honor and grace.—The requirement of that which man ought to do, according to God’s will, appears often very surprising, surpassing all capacity, for God has beforehand already taken care for all, and Himself concurs. His is properly the main act.—The feeling of compassion in Christ much mightier than the need of rest.—Van Oosterzee:—Jesus the bread of life. Intimation how He even now: 1. Meets with the same necessity; 2. exhibits the same majesty; 3. prepares the same refreshment; 4. deserves the same homage; 5. provokes the same schism as at the miracle of the Loaves.