Matthew 15:29-39

Modelling the Kingdom - Curing and Feeding

Matthew 15:29-31 Jesus Cures the Needy

²⁹ Jesus moved on from there and came to the lake of Galilee.

He went up the hill and sat down there.

³⁰ Large crowds came up to him,

and they had with them people who were lame, maimed, blind, dumb and many others.

They laid them down around his feet, and he healed them.

³¹ The crowds were amazed,

seeing the dumb speaking,

the maimed cured, the lame walking around

and the blind seeing.

And they glorified the God of Israel.

Mark had situated this incident in Gentile territory for the theological and pastoral reason of having Jesus feed a Gentile crowd, as well as a Jewish crowd. For Matthew, Jesus was clearly in Galilee. He went up a hill, an obviously awkward place for the lame, the maimed and the blind to have access to him. Matthew, too, was theologising, but his point was different from Mark’s.

For Matthew, the mountain location indicated special importance. This mountain venue carried echoes of God’s feeding the world at the time of the eventual coming of the Kingdom. Isaiah had prophesied, in relation to Mount Zion, that the lame, the maimed, the blind and the dumb, and all peoples, would come to share in its blessings:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,

of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear [Isaiah 25.6].

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy [Isaiah 35.5-6].

For Matthew and his community, Mount Zion (and its temple) had been replaced. They were no longer the place where God resided. The risen Christ was now the one through whom God could be encountered.

Matthew 15:32-39 Jesus Feeds Four Thousand

(Mk 8:1-10)

³² Jesus then called the disciples to him and said,

“I am deeply moved for the crowd.

They have been with me for three days by now

and they have nothing to eat.

I do not want to send them off hungry

in case they grow weak on the way.”

Jesus’ comment echoed the imagery and language of Psalm 107:

Some wandered in desert wastes,

finding no way to an inhabited town;

hungry and thirsty,

their soul fainted within them [Psalm 107:4-5].

³³ The disciples said to him,

“Where could we get enough food from in this deserted place

to feed such a crowd?”

Given that the disciples could hardly have been so forgetful of how Jesus had fed the five thousand in an earlier incident, it is clear that Matthew had essentially followed Mark [though he apparently failed to see the point of Mark's account], his purpose being to emphasise once again the abundant goodness associated with the Kingdom (and expected within the Christian community).

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “How many loaves of bread do you have?”

They said, “Seven, and a few pieces of dried fish.”

³⁵ He told the crowd to sit down on the ground.

³⁶ He then took the seven loaves and the dried fish,

said a prayer of thanks,

broke the loaves

and gave them to the disciples,

and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

³⁷ All ate and were filled.

The pieces left over filled seven baskets.

³⁸ Those who had eaten numbered four thousand men,

not counting women and children.

The minor changes in detail from the earlier feeding of the five thousand made sense in Mark’s narrative, where the recipients were Gentiles. They made no particular sense in Matthew’s.

³⁹ He sent the crowd away, got into the boat

and came to the territory of Magadan.

Matthew seemed to have forgotten that he had situated the incident up the hill, and no boat had been mentioned at all. His interests were not geographical.

Next >> Matthew 16:1-12