(10) Much grass.--This is an addition in this account. St. Mark, who also represents the impression of an eye-witness, tells us that the grass was green (John 6:39). We know from John 6:4 that it was at the time of the Passover--i.e., about our April, when the hill-country on the west of the lake would naturally be clothed with verdure.

So the men sat down.--The word (??????) means men as such, as distinct from women. (Comp. Note on John 1:51.) St. Matthew tells us there were five thousand men besides the women and children (John 14:21; see Note there).

Verse 10. - Jesus said (the omission of δὲ rather augments the vivid force of the statement), Make the people (ἀνθρώπους here. contrasted with the ἄνδρες of the next clause) recline. Now there was much grass in the place. As already said, this is in harmony with the note of time conveyed in ver. 4. The other evangelist (Mark 6:39) speaks of the people sitting down "upon the green grass" - a vivid touch this of an eyewitness; Matthew (Matthew 14:19) also speaks of the grass; and Mark and Luke add another rememberable feature which John omits. The men (ἄνδρες were distinguished from ἄνθρωποι, which last term may have included the "women and children" (Matthew 14:21), who in no great numbers probably formed, according to Eastern custom, a company by themselves). The men sat down (reclined), in number - the matter of the "number" is here put into the "accusative of closer definition" (Meyer) - about five thousand. Luke says, "in groups of fifty." Mark first declares that Jesus ordered them to sit down (συμπόσια συμπόσια) in parties, and describes the result as having the appearance of garden beds (πρασιαί πρασιαί), of fifty or of a hundred each. The πρασιά is area, forus (Gartenbett; Homer, "Od.," 7:127; 24:247). "Πρασιαί," says Theophylact, "are the different divisions in gardens, in which different herbs are often planted." The image of the garden plots, with different divisions between them, forced itself on the eyewitness (see Trench, "Miracles," p. 205).

6:1-14 John relates the miracle of feeding the multitude, for its reference to the following discourse. Observe the effect this miracle had upon the people. Even the common Jews expected the Messiah to come into the world, and to be a great Prophet. The Pharisees despised them as not knowing the law; but they knew most of Him who is the end of the law. Yet men may acknowledge Christ as that Prophet, and still turn a deaf ear to him.Jesus said, make the men sit down,.... The Syriac version reads, "all the men"; and the Persic version, "all the people"; men, women, and children: Christ, without reproving his disciples for their unbelief, ordered them directly to place the people upon the ground, and seat them in rows by hundreds and by fifties, in a rank and company, as persons about to take a meal:

now there was much grass in the place; at the bottom of the mountain; and it was green, as one of the evangelists observes, it being the spring of the year, and was very commodious to sit down upon:

so the men sat down, in number about five thousand; besides women and children, Matthew 14:21, so that there was but one loaf for more than a thousand persons.