Mark 6:30-34

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:30 Then ¹  the apostles gathered around Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. 6:31 He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat). 6:32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to some remote place. 6:33 But many saw them leaving and recognized them, and they hurried on foot ²  from all the towns ³  and arrived there ahead of them. ⁴  6:34 As Jesus ⁵  came ashore ⁶  he saw the large crowd and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So ⁷  he taught them many things.

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¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

² tn Grk “ran together on foot.” The idea of συντρέχω (suntrecw) is “to come together quickly to form a crowd” (L&N 15.133).

³ tn Or “cities.”

⁴ tc The translation here follows the reading προῆλθον (prohlqon, “they preceded”), found in א B [phone] pc lat co. Some mss (D 28 33 700 pc) read συνῆλθον (sunhlqon, “arrived there with them”), while the majority of mss, most of them late (Ì^84vid [A ˹³] Ï sy^h), conflate the two readings (προῆλθον αὐτοὺς καὶ συνῆλθον πρὸς αὐτόν, “they preceded them and came together to him”). The reading adopted here thus has better external credentials than the variants. As well, it is the harder reading internally, being changed “by copyists who thought it unlikely that the crowd on the land could have outstripped the boat” (TCGNT 78).

⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Grk “came out [of the boat],” with the reference to the boat understood.

⁷ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate this action is the result of Jesus’ compassion on the crowd in the narrative.