But Jesus told them, “You give them something to eat.” “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered, “unless we go and buy food for all these people.”
Parallel translations
- WEB But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we should go and buy food for all these people.”
- KJV But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all this people.
- NKJV But He said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.”
- NASB But He said to them, “You give them something to eat!” But they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.”
- NLT But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Or are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jesus tells the disciples to feed the crowd, and they protest that they have only five loaves and two fish. It exposes the gap between human resources and the need, setting the stage for a miracle.
Overview
The disciples want to send the crowd away, but Jesus puts the responsibility on them, drawing out their helplessness before a need they cannot meet. Their honest inventory of five loaves and two fish highlights human inadequacy, which is exactly where Christ works. The scene anticipates how the Lord provides abundantly through small means surrendered to Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Prov 11:24–25One gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds what is right, only to become poor.
- 2 Kgs 4:42–43Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.
- John 6:5–9When Jesus looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?”
- Mark 6:37–38But Jesus told them, “You give them something to eat.” They asked Him, “Should we go out and spend two hundred denarii to give all of them bread to eat?”
- Matt 14:16–17“They do not need to go away,” Jesus replied. “You give them something to eat.”
- Num 11:21–23But Moses replied, “Here I am among 600,000 men on foot, yet You say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 9:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.