Matthew - 14:21



21 Those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Matthew 14:21.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.
And they that did eat were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
And the number of them that did eat, was five thousand men, besides women and children.
But those that had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
And they that did eat were about five thousand men, beside women an children.
and those eating were about five thousand men, apart from women and children.
Those who had eaten were about 5,000 adult men, without reckoning women and children.
And those who had food were about five thousand men, in addition to women and children.
The men who ate were about five thousand in number, without counting women and children.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

Five thousand men, besides - Probably the whole number might have been ten thousand, To feed so many was an act of great benevolence and a stupendous miracle.

And they that had eaten were about five thousand men,.... The word "about", is omitted in the Vulgate Latin, in Munster's Hebrew Gospel, and in the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions, which expressly say there were so many. A large number indeed, to be fed with five loaves and two fishes!
besides women and children; who were not taken into the account, though they all ate, and were filled, it not being usual with the Jews to number their women; and who might be near as large a number as the men: for generally there is a very great concourse of the female sex, and of children, where anything extraordinary, or out of the way, is to be seen or heard; and of this sort was a large number of Christ's audience, who only came out of curiosity, or for one sinister end or another.

Five thousand men. Thus there was one loaf to every thousand men. Christ is the bread if life, satisfying the hunger of the soul for love, forgiveness, immortality, usefulness, progress, knowledge. He gives that bread to his disciples and bids them to distribute it to the multitude. Such is its blessed and divine nature that the more they distribute to hungry, famishing souls, the more they have remaining for themselves.

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