But Jesus said unto them,
They need not depart; you give them to eat.
Read Chapter 14
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
But Jesus said. It may perhaps be asked here, if then our Lord, as St. John relates, looking upon the multitude, inquired of Philip how so great a multitude could be fed in the desert, how can this be true, which St. Matthew relates, that the disciples first desired Jesus to send away the multitude? But we are to understand, that after these words our Lord looked upon the multitude, and said to Philip what St. John mentions, which St. Matthew and the other evangelists omit. (St. Augustine, de concord. evang.)
They have no need to go: give you them to eat. This he says for our instruction, that when the poor ask us alms, we send them not to other persons and other places, if we are able to relieve them ourselves. (Estius)
This happened when the Passover was near at hand, (being the third since the commencement of our Saviour's ministry.) St. John does not usually relate what is mentioned by the other evangelists, especially what happened in Galilee. If he does it on this occasion, it ...
He said not, I give them, but, Give ye them; for as yet their regard to Him was as to a man. But they not even so are awakened, but still reason as with a man.
The disciples are compassionate and concerned about the multitude, not wanting them to go without food. What, then, does the Saviour do? "Give ye them to eat," He says, not in ignorance of the extreme poverty of the apostles — far from it. But so that when they had said, "We do not have," He might appear to proceed to work a miracle out of necessity and not from vainglory.
