This verse begins with the Greek particle (oun), not rendered explicitly by Good News Translation. (See under 2.18.).

Jesus looked around and saw translates the same verbs used in 4.35, more literally, “lifting up his eyes … and seeing” (Revised Standard Version). “To lift up one’s eyes” is a Hebraic idiom, which Jerusalem Bible translates “looking up.”

For the sake of natural English style Good News Translation introduces the second clause with so.

Food is literally “breads,” a reference to the small-sized loaves of bread (like large buns) that the Jews were accustomed to eat. Although most translations have “bread,” the context suggests that the word is understood generically, as Good News Translation takes it.

To feed all these people (New English Bible “to feed these people”) is literally “in order that these might eat.” Good News Translation and New English Bible restructure the phrase; both make the subject, “these (people),” the object of the verb and change intransitive “eat” to transitive “feed.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .