THE BOY WITH THE FISH AND BREAD (JOHN 6:8-9)

 

                                             “Every Little Bit Helps” (collage, 2009)

The importance of the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes is seen in the fact that it appears in all four gospels (Matthew 14; Mark 6:38; Luke 9; John 6). But only John's account mentions where the original fish and bread came from. In John 6:8-9, we are told that Jesus charges Philip with finding food for all the people. Philip expresses the impossibility of purchasing that much food, but his brother Andrew goes through the crowd and comes back with a boy who had brought his meager lunch with him. With this small resource, Jesus multiplies it until it suffices for everyone, with some food left over.

Before proceeding further, it is best to dismiss the well-meaning but unlikely explanation given by some skeptical commentators, namely, that all the people in the crowd hid their own food supplies when Andrew canvassed them. It took the generous impulse of the one boy to shame the others into revealing and sharing their resources with others. I am afraid that particular explanation appears to me even more unlikely than the possibility that Jesus was actually capable of carrying out such a miracle.

And in a way, the multiplication of the loaves and fish fits into the same pattern as Jesus' first recorded miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana. In both cases, Jesus performed the same sort of miracle that God built into nature in order that we might have food and drink, the only difference being in the time scale involved. This is not a new suggestion as Colin Brown explains: “Augustine also considers the suggestion, favored by more recent writers [C.S. Lewis among them], that miracles might be instances of the accelerated processes in nature...the feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14:17,20) is no more of a miracle than what God does daily, when out of a few seeds he raises up immense harvests.”

Andrew

But since Jesus generally works with physical resources already at hand instead of creating something out of nothing, He still needs some appropriate raw material, and this is where Andrew comes in. Instead of throwing up his hands in despair as Philip did, Andrew comes back with what little he could find. Borchert stresses Andrew's similar feeling of failure and hopelessness, but I feel he overdoes this aspect of Andrew's character since he at least takes the initiative that Philip refused to do and he also has enough hope in Jesus' ability to mention what he did find among the crowd.

We are not told a lot about Andrew in the NT, but what little we do know certainly causes us to look upon him in a favorable light. “Andrew responds to each situation by introducing others to Jesus: his brother (1:4), the boy (6:8), and the Greeks (12:22). Like his more famous brother, though in a different way he too is an appropriate model of the disciple that bears much fruit (15:8).” (Culpepper)

The Bread and Fish

Morris explains: “Barley bread was bread of a cheap kind, so that the boy was probably poor. The two fishes were something of a tidbit which would make the coarse barley bread more palatable.” At this point, I am reminded of the tiny offering the widow put in the temple collection which Jesus valued far above the lavish offerings given by the more wealthy. It is not the monetary amount that counts but the attitude with which it is given and importance the offering has to the giver in relation to their total resources.

You may note that there is a seeming emphasis on numbers in the story of the feeding. One obvious reason is to demonstrate quantitatively the enormous amount of multiplication that had taken place. But we can't ignore the possible symbolic meaning behind the various numbers mentioned either. Thus, Borchert discusses the probable significance of “seven” (five loaves plus two fish) standing for completeness or perfection and “twelve” (baskets gathered afterward), symbolic of the chosen people of God in both the OT (the tribes) and the NT (the apostles).

The Boy

This anonymous personage is designated as a paidarion. Braumann notes that this word in Classical Greek “generally means, like paidion, a little child (cf. Plato, Symp. 207d). But it can mean young man (cf. Tob. 6:2f), a young servant or slave.” Actually, as Raymond Brown and others point out, it “is a double diminutive of pais of which paidion is the normal diminutive (iv 49). In [the Greek translation of] I Kings paidarion is used to designate Gehazi the servant of Elisha (iv 12,14,25,v 20).”

And Morris says, “The strict meaning cannot be insisted upon, for the word is used in LXX [the Septuagint] at Gen. 37:30 to describe Joseph at the age of seventeen, and several times in Tobit 6 of a young man of marriageable age...and Moffatt translates in this passage [i.e. John 6], 'servant.'”

Old Testament Parallels

Some scholars have drawn an unlikely parallel to the episode in Ruth where she is given a large amount of grain by Boaz. However, much more likely is the suggestion of Raymond Brown who notes “the 'lad' and the 'barley loaves' recall the Elisha story in II Kings iv 42. We remember that the NT establishes a parallelism between Jesus and the closely connected figures of Elijah and Elisha...A man comes to Elisha with twenty barley loaves (one of the four uses of 'barley as an adjective in LXX. Elisha says, 'Give to the men that they may eat.” There is a servant present (designated as leitourgos here, but as paidarion five verses before, and the latter is his normal designation). The servant asks, 'How am I to set this before a hundred men' – a question similar to vs. 9 in John. Elisha repeats the order to give the food to the men and they eat and have some left.”