Verses 29 and 30 tell us that Christ moved on along the Sea of Galilee and as usual the

crowds followed Him, bringing disabled and sick ones for healing. Their immediate

restoration to health and fitness amazed the people, and, we are told, "They praised the

God of Israel" (verse 31). The Lord looked on the multitude and realized that, after being

with Him for 3 days, they were very hungry, and He had compassion on them as He had

before with the crowd that numbered around 5,000. He tells the disciples that He does

not want to send them away in this famished condition as they might collapse on the

journey. The disciples immediately asked:

Could it be that they had so soon forgotten the previous miraculous feeding? It hardly

seems possible, but it looks as though this was the case.

As before, He told the crowd to sit down on the ground, and taking all the food they

happened to have, seven loaves and a few small fish, He multiplied them with His

creative power so that finally all ate and were satisfied (verse 37). There were seven

basketsful of broken pieces of food left over, collected by the disciples. Once more He

gave evidence that He could meet all physical needs, and this was an illustration of what

He could do spiritually for all who look to Him.

Some Bible scholars do not accept the idea of two miracles so similar as the feeding of

the 5,000 and 4,000, but they seem to forget that both Matthew and Luke give them in

detail, and they were confirmed as separate miracles by the Lord Himself (16: 8-10).

Christ now dismisses the crowd and gets into a boat and goes to the vicinity of

Magadan, which was probably Magdala, as many manuscripts have it.

Chapter 16: commences with a party of Pharisees and Sadducees coming to Christ

"to tempt Him" and trip Him up if possible.  This is the first time we have the

combination of these two groups who detested one another. A common enmity united

traditional foes. They asked Him for a sign from heaven (16: 1). The Lord had healed

many and given earthly signs of His Messiahship, but the enemies thought they could

defeat Him by asking for a special sign from heaven. The inference is that this would

really impress people. The Lord replies to their cunning by reminding them that they

could interpret weather portents (and we do the same today with red sky in the morning

and evening), but they were totally unable to interpret the signs of the times.  He