Mark 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus feeds a crowd of about four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fish, then refuses the Pharisees' demand for a sign from heaven. He warns his disciples to beware the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod; they think he means their lack of bread, and he asks them about the two feedings. At Bethsaida he heals a blind man in two stages, and on the road near Caesarea Philippi Peter says that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus then begins teaching that the Son of Man must suffer, be killed, and rise after three days, rebukes Peter for objecting, and tells the crowd what it costs to follow him.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • In those days a very great multitude was present again.
   • The multitude had nothing to eat.
   • Jesus called his disciples to him.
   • Jesus spoke to his disciples.
2. 8:2
   • Jesus said he had compassion on the multitude.
   • Jesus said the crowd had already remained with him three days.
   • Jesus said the crowd had nothing to eat.
3. 8:3
   • Jesus said that if he sent them away to their homes without eating, they would collapse on the way.
   • Jesus said some of them had come from far away.
4. 8:4
   • The disciples answered Jesus.
   • The disciples asked from where anyone could get enough bread to satisfy these people in this deserted place.
5. 8:5
   • Jesus asked the disciples how many loaves they had.
   • The disciples said seven.
6. 8:6
   • Jesus commanded the crowd to recline on the ground.
   • Jesus took the seven loaves.
   • Jesus gave thanks.
   • Jesus broke the loaves.
   • Jesus gave the pieces to his disciples to set before the people.
   • The disciples set the bread before the crowd.
7. 8:7
   • They had a few small fish.
   • Jesus blessed the fish.
   • Jesus commanded that the fish also be set before the people.
8. 8:8
   • The people ate.
   • The people were filled.
   • They took up seven baskets of leftover broken pieces.
9. 8:9
   • Those present were about four thousand.
   • Jesus sent the crowd away.
10. 8:10
    • Immediately Jesus got into the boat with his disciples.
    • Jesus came into the region of Dalmanutha.
11. 8:11
    • The Pharisees came out.
    • The Pharisees began to argue with Jesus.
    • The Pharisees sought from him a sign from heaven.
    • The Pharisees were testing Jesus.
12. 8:12
    • Jesus sighed deeply in his spirit.
    • Jesus asked why this generation seeks a sign.
    • Jesus said truly to them that no sign would be given to this generation.
13. 8:13
    • Jesus left them.
    • Jesus got into the boat again.
    • Jesus went away to the other side.
14. 8:14
    • The disciples had forgotten to bring bread.
    • The disciples had only one loaf with them in the boat.
15. 8:15
    • Jesus charged them, saying to take heed.
    • Jesus told them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.
    • Jesus told them to beware of the leaven of Herod.
16. 8:16
    • The disciples reasoned with one another.
    • The disciples said it was because they had no bread.
17. 8:17
    • Jesus knew what they were reasoning.
    • Jesus asked them why they reasoned about having no bread.
    • Jesus asked whether they still did not perceive or understand.
    • Jesus asked whether their heart was hardened.
18. 8:18
    • Jesus asked whether, having eyes, they do not see.
    • Jesus asked whether, having ears, they do not hear.
    • Jesus asked whether they do not remember.
19. 8:19
    • Jesus asked how many baskets full of fragments they took up when he broke the five loaves for the five thousand.
    • The disciples said twelve.
20. 8:20
    • Jesus asked how many baskets full of fragments they took up when he broke the seven loaves for the four thousand.
    • The disciples said seven.
21. 8:21
    • Jesus asked them how it is that they do not yet understand.
22. 8:22
    • Jesus and his disciples came to Bethsaida.
    • People brought a blind man to Jesus.
    • They begged Jesus to touch the blind man.
23. 8:23
    • Jesus took the blind man by the hand.
    • Jesus led him outside the village.
    • Jesus spat on the man's eyes.
    • Jesus laid his hands on him.
    • Jesus asked the man whether he saw anything.
24. 8:24
    • The man looked up.
    • The man said he saw men.
    • The man said they looked like trees, walking.
25. 8:25
    • Jesus again laid his hands on the man's eyes.
    • The man looked intently.
    • The man was restored.
    • The man saw everything clearly.
26. 8:26
    • Jesus sent the man away to his house.
    • Jesus told him not to go into the town.
    • Jesus told him not to tell it to anyone in the town.
27. 8:27
    • Jesus and his disciples went out to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
    • On the way Jesus asked his disciples who people say that he is.
28. 8:28
    • The disciples answered that some say John the Baptist.
    • The disciples said others say Elijah.
    • The disciples said others say one of the prophets.
29. 8:29
    • Jesus asked the disciples who they say that he is.
    • Peter answered Jesus.
    • Peter said Jesus is the Christ.
30. 8:30
    • Jesus charged them to tell no one about him.
31. 8:31
    • Jesus began to teach the disciples.
    • Jesus taught that the Son of man must suffer many things.
    • Jesus taught that the Son of man must be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes.
    • Jesus taught that the Son of man must be killed.
    • Jesus taught that the Son of man must rise again after three days.
32. 8:32
    • Jesus spoke this word openly.
    • Peter took Jesus aside.
    • Peter began to rebuke Jesus.
33. 8:33
    • Jesus turned around.
    • Jesus looked at his disciples.
    • Jesus rebuked Peter.
    • Jesus told Peter to get behind him, calling him Satan.
    • Jesus said Peter's mind was not on the things of God but on the things of men.
34. 8:34
    • Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples.
    • Jesus said that if anyone wants to come after him, he must deny himself.
    • Jesus said such a person must take up his cross.
    • Jesus said such a person must follow him.
35. 8:35
    • Jesus said whoever wants to save his life will lose it.
    • Jesus said whoever loses his life for Jesus' sake and the gospel's will save it.
36. 8:36
    • Jesus asked what it profits a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul.
37. 8:37
    • Jesus asked what a man could give in exchange for his soul.
38. 8:38
    • Jesus said this generation is adulterous and sinful.
    • Jesus said that whoever is ashamed of him and of his words in this generation, of that person the Son of man will also be ashamed.
    • Jesus said the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

Disciples were students. These men traveled with Jesus, listened to his teaching, and helped him. Twelve of them were his closest followers.

8:3

Back then people walked everywhere. Going home could take many hours.

8:4

"Wilderness" in the King James means uninhabited open country, scrub and grazing land, not forest. The point is that there are no villages nearby where food could be bought.

8:5

Loaves were flat round cakes of bread roughly the size of a dinner plate, baked fresh each day. Seven of them would feed one household, which is why the disciples treat the question as hopeless.

8:6

At a Jewish meal the head of the table took the bread, said a short blessing to God over it, broke it, and passed the pieces around. The gesture described here is ordinary household practice.

8:8

"Broken meat" is not flesh. In 1611 "meat" meant food of any kind, so the phrase means the broken pieces of food left over.

8:10

No place called Dalmanutha is known from any other ancient source, and its location is uncertain. Some early copies of Mark read "Magadan" or "Magdala" here instead.

8:11

The Pharisees were a movement known for strict observance of the law of Moses and the body of traditional interpretation that had grown up around it; they were widely respected teachers among ordinary people. A "sign from heaven" meant something done in the sky by God directly, of the order of fire falling or manna appearing, which no one could explain away. The King James "tempting him" does not mean luring him into sin: in 1611 "tempt" meant to put to the test.

8:12

"There shall no sign be given" translates a Hebrew oath formula that runs literally "if a sign shall be given to this generation," with the self-curse left unspoken. Cut off that way, it is the strongest possible form of refusal.

8:13

The lake is the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake about thirteen miles long. Fishing boats crossed it all the time.

8:15

Leaven is not packet yeast but a lump of fermented dough saved from the last batch and worked into the new one; a small piece changes the whole mass, which made it a stock image for something that spreads unseen. "Herod" here is Herod Antipas, who governed Galilee for Rome and had ordered John the Baptist's execution.

8:17

In biblical usage the "heart" is the thinking, deciding self, not the emotions. A hardened heart is a mind that will not take something in, not a person without feelings.

8:18

The wording quotes the prophets: Jeremiah 5:21 and Ezekiel 12:2 both describe people who have eyes and ears and still fail to grasp what is in front of them.

8:19

Greek uses two different words for basket in these two verses. The twelve baskets are kophinoi, stiff wicker containers of the sort a traveler carried his own provisions in. The seven in the next verse are spyrides, large hampers, big enough to hold a man: Paul was let down a city wall in one (Acts 9:25).

8:22

Bethsaida was a fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, near the point where the Jordan flows in.

8:23

Saliva was widely believed in the ancient world to have healing properties, and healers of the period are recorded using it. Mark reports the gesture without explaining it.

8:26

The manuscripts differ at this point. Some ancient copies read only "Do not go into the village"; the longer wording the King James follows, adding "nor tell it to any in the town," is absent from the earliest ones.

8:27

Caesarea Philippi lay about twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee at the foot of Mount Hermon. Herod Philip rebuilt it and named it for the Roman emperor and for himself. Its population was largely non-Jewish, so this is the far edge of familiar territory.

8:28

"Elias" is simply the Greek form of the name Elijah. Elijah was the prophet taken up to heaven without dying (2 Kings 2), and Malachi 4:5 promised he would return before the day of the LORD, so people of this period watched for him.

8:29

"Christ" is a title, not a surname. Greek christos translates Hebrew mashiach, "anointed one": kings were anointed with oil when they took the throne, and by this period many Jews expected an anointed king descended from David who would free Israel.

8:31

"Son of man" is a Semitic phrase that can mean simply "a human being," but it also recalls Daniel 7:13, where "one like a son of man" is brought before God and given lasting authority. Jesus uses it of himself throughout Mark. The elders, chief priests and scribes are the three groups that made up the Sanhedrin, the ruling council in Jerusalem; scribes were the trained experts in the written law.

8:32

"Openly" translates a Greek word meaning plainly and without holding back, the opposite of speaking in riddles or parables. The point is the manner of the speech, not that a crowd was present.

8:33

"Satan" is a Hebrew word meaning adversary or opponent. "Thou savourest not" uses an old sense of "savour": to have a taste for something, and so to have your mind set on it.

8:34

A person condemned to crucifixion carried the crossbeam himself through the streets to the place of execution. Rome used the penalty on rebels and slaves, and the sight was familiar in Judea, so the image is of someone already sentenced walking out to die.

8:35

The same Greek word, psyche, lies behind "life" here and "soul" in the next two verses. It means the self, the living person, and the sentence turns on both senses at once: saving your skin, and saving yourself.

8:36

The word for soul also means life, a person's very self. Losing it means losing everything you are.

8:37

The language is commercial: a price paid to buy something back out of another's possession. Psalm 49:7-8 uses the same idea, that no payment is large enough to redeem a life.

8:38

"Adulterous" is figurative. The prophets regularly described Israel's unfaithfulness to God as adultery, a marriage broken by one partner, and the word carries that sense here rather than referring to sexual conduct in general.