The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 251

through some treacherous ice over which she apent. The English, like the Greek, ie here wns pe.ssing, aud foll through it iu such a veryidiomatic(1eal1fo71 t:ipas,rOAAil•-y•11oµh71,). mnnner that her head was caught while the The English is retained in the Revised rest of her body sank into the water, and Version as it came thron<>h the Authorized thus it co.me to pass that in her efforts to Version from Tyndale. The present parti- save herself her head was nearly severed by ciple -y,110µ.l,,.,,, appears in the Sinaitic Manu- the sharp edges of the broken ice. script and in the Cambridge Codex. His Ver. 30.-The narrative, which had been diaoiplea oame unto him, and said. The bein interrupted by this parenthesis relating to reading is (,cal lA<-yov), and 1De-re ,aying. St;. John the Baptist, is now taken up again. Matthew (xiv. 16) says, "They need not The apostles. This is the only place where depart; give ye them to eat." Thus our St. Mark calls them apostles. In the Lord prepared the way for his miracle. He parallel passage, St. Luke (ii:. 10) says that detained the multitude till the day was far they told him all tuat they had done. St. speut, eo that the disciples might be induced Mark adds, with more detail, Bild whatsoever to pray him to dismiss them. Thie would (80-a) they had taught, They gave him a fall open the way for him to direct the disciples account of their mission. to feed them. And thll.'! the miracle would Ver. 31.-Our Lord cared for his dis- appear all the more evident in proportion ciples. They required rest after the labour as they found themselves in a strait, and and excitement of their ministry ; and it utterly destitute of thA needful supplies of we.s impossible to find the needful refresh- food for such a. multitude in tile desert. ment and repose where they were so St. John's account here fa mnch more full. thronged by the multitude. He tells us (vi. 5) that Jesus, addressing Ver. 32.-And they went away in the boat Philip, said, " Whence are we to buy bread, (-rep 1rAolq,) to a desert place apart-the that these may eat?" And he adds, "Thia boat, no doubt, which our Lord had ordered he so.id to prove him : for he himself knew to be always in attendance upon him. We what he would do." Our Lord, it wouhl learn from St. Luke (ix. 10) that this desert seem, asked Philip rather than the others, r lace was near to '' n citv called Bethsaida." t seems that there were two places called Bethsaida-one in Galilee proper, and the because Philip was simple-minded, sincere, and teachable, rather than clever, and so was accustomed to ask things which ap- other to the north-east of the Sea of Galilee. peared plain to others. We have an instance It was to the neighbourhood of this hitter of this simplicity of mind iu the question place that our Lord here directs the boat to which he asks (John xiv. 8), "Loni show t:i.ke him. The other Bethsaida is men- us the Father, and it sulliceth us." tioned lower down llt ver. 45. The word Ver. 37.-Two hundred pennyworth of Bethsaida means the "fish village." bread. The penny, or" denarius," was the Ver. 33.-This is very graphic. The chief Roman silver coin, worth about eight- Greek in the first po.rt of this verse runs pence halfpenny. Upon the breaking up of thus, according to the best authorities: Kai the Roman empire, the stntes which arose ElOov allT-O~s {nrd;,ovTa.r, Ka.} €1rl-y11w<1a11 aUrbv upon its ruins imitated the coinage of the 1r0Mol: And they-i.e. the people-saw old imperial mints, and in ;;eneml called them going, and many knew them. Tuey their principal silver coin the "deno.rius." saw them departing, and observed what Thus the denarius found its way into this direction the boat took, and then hastened country through the Anglo-So.~ons, and it thither on foot, and outwent them ; and so wns for a long period the only coin. Heuce were ready to meet them ngain on the the introduction of the word into the Autho- opposite shore when they lunded. Tha rized Version. Two hundred pennyworth distance by land from the place where they would be of the value of nearly seven started would be o.bont twenty miles. pounds. But considering the constant Ver. 34.-Our Lord had gone to this tluctuation in tho refotion between money desert place for retirement and rest; but and the commodities purchased by money, finding the multitude waiting for him, his it is in vain to mquira who.t number of compe.ijsions were stirred, and he began to loaves the same two hundred denarii would tee.oh them many things. He was moved purchase nt that time, although it was with compassion, beoause they were as sheep evidently the represento.tion of a large not having a shepherd. No animal is more supply of bread. helpless, more stupid, more in need of a Ver. 38.-Five (loaves), and two fishes. shepherd, than the sheep. St. Chrysostom St. John tells us (vi. 9) that the lo!\ves were observes that the scribes were not so much of barley, and that the fishes were email pastors as wolves, beoause, by 'teaching (o,j,a.p,a); St. Mark says 6vo lx96ar. Bar- errors both by word and by exnmple, they ley bread we.s considered an inferior nnd perverted the minds of the simple: homely kind of food, very inferior to bread Ver. 85.-And vrhen the day was now far made of wheat flour, The comparativ,  1!48 THE GOSPEL AOOORDlNG TO ST. MARlt. [OU. VI, 1-68.