Matthew Henry on Mark 8:1-9
We had the story of a miracle very like this before, in this gospel (Mar 6:35), and of this same miracle (Mat 15:32), and here is little or no addition or alternation as to the circumstances. Yet observe,
1. That our Lord Jesus was greatly followed; The multitude was very great (Mar 8:1); notwithstanding the wicked arts of the scribes and Pharisees to blemish him, and to blast his interest, the common people, who had more honesty, and therefore more true wisdom, than their leaders, kept up their high thoughts of him. We may suppose that this multitude were generally of the meaner sort of people, with such Christ conversed, and was familiar; for thus he humbled himself, and made himself of no…
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etc. - See on Mat 14:14 (note); Mat 15:35.
John Gill on Mark 8:4
And his disciples answered him,.... The Syriac version renders it, "say unto him"; and the Persic and Ethiopic, "said unto him"; forgetting the late miracle of feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, when they had now a less number, and more provisions:
from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? from what place, and by what ways and means can it be thought, that such a quantity of bread can be got at any rate in a desert, as to satisfy so large a number of hungry men? See Gill on Matthew 15:33.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Mark 8:4
The disciples’ frustration at the situation reveals their dullness. They knew how God provided manna in the wilderness for his people in Moses’ time (Exod 16). They were now in the presence of one far greater than Moses (see Mark 9:5-7) and had recently seen him feed a greater number of people in a similar situation (6:30-44). However, they still did not understand (cp. 6:52). Even so, Jesus worked through them to bring physical and spiritual food to the hungry (8:6-8). What they could not do by themselves, the mighty Son of God would do through them.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
