We have only may better be rendered as “All we have” or “The only food that we have.”

Bread (particularly barley bread instead of wheat bread) and fish comprised the basic diet of the poor in Galilee. The mention of five loaves may be deceptive, since people of the western world are accustomed to thinking of a loaf of bread as sufficient for several people for several meals. The Palestinian bread loaves were much smaller, and three loaves were generally considered sufficient for one person during a meal. Five loaves then would have been approximately enough bread for two people.

Some translators will put the information about the size and nature of bread in Galilee into footnotes. But others will render five loaves as “five small loaves of bread.” In 4.3 and later we suggested “bread” is often a figure for food in general. That is not the case here with loaves, where it is actually bread being referred to.

The two fish would have been either smoked or pickled; these were considered a delicacy when eaten as a relish for the bread.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .