barley bread

The Greek that is translated as “barley bread” (or: “barley loaf”) in English is translated in Elhomwe as “cheap bread.” Barely bread had the reputation of being cheaper than wheat (see here) and since neither barley nor its reputation are being known in Malawi, it was decided to translated explicitly.(Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

See also barley.

Feeding of the Five Thousand

1936 painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Housed in the Société des Auxiliaires des Missions Collection – Whitworth University
(click image to enlarge)

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

Following is a 1973 painting of the JESUS MAFA project, a response to New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings:

Jesus stands in the center inspecting the baskets of leftover food the disciples are bringing to him. All around him are content crowds of people who have just been fed. The miracle of this story rests in Jesus’ taking the resources people shared and breaking (read dividing) them among all in attendance that day. Christians are called to live and follow Christ in his example—this means sharing what we have with those around us, especially those in need. In this world, there is plenty to go around. Rather than projecting a gospel of prosperity, we should radiate a gospel of giving.

From Art in the Christian Tradition , a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Image retrieved March 23, 2026. Original source: librairie-emmanuel.fr.

John as a first-person evangelist (John 6:13)

In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.

The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):

“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.

“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”

In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “Then we gathered . . .”

complete verse (John 6:13)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 6:13:

  • Uma: “They gathered it up, there were twelve baskets left over from the five pieces of bread that the many people had eaten.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “So-then they gathered all the left-overs. From the five units of bread eaten by the people the left-overs they gathered were twelve baskets full.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then they gathered up twelve baskets full of the pieces of the five loaves of barley.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When they gathered-together then what was left-over of the original five breads, twelve baskets are what were filled (lit. placed-in) with the broken-scraps of food.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Without anything further, the disciples collected those left-overs of bread. As for what got collected by them, twelve baskets got filled.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Now five breads had been parted to feed the people. That which was left over was twelve baskets of leftovers.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

barley

Barley Hordeum distichum or Hordeum vulgare is a type of grass like wheat and rice. It has been cultivated in the Middle East for thousands of years and is now one of the most prominent seed crops grown in the world. Twenty species are known, of which eight are European. Barley needs less rain than wheat does, so in the Holy Land it was typically found in the drier areas above the coastal plain and near the desert. From 2 Kings 7:1 and Revelation 6:6 we know that barley was considered inferior to wheat and was often used to feed animals, as it is today. When the wheat supply ran out, people had to make their bread with barley. Barley was gathered before wheat, the harvest coming around March or April in the lower regions and in May in the mountains (see Exodus 9:31 et al.). In Egypt and in ancient Greece barley was used to make beer.

Barley plants look like wheat or rice. They are less than 1 meter (3 feet) tall, and have a single head on each stalk, with six rows of kernels, although the biblical kind may have had only two rows. The head bends at a down-ward angle when it is ripe.

In the story of Gideon and the Midianites in Judges 7:13, “a cake of barley” representing the (despised) Israelite army tumbles into the Midianite camp and knocks down the tent (representing the nomadic Midianites).

Barley is a plant of temperate zones, like Europe and the Near East; it does not grow well in the tropics. However, barley has been recently introduced along with wheat into many parts of the world for brewing beer and other malted drinks. It is also known to have grown in Korea as early as 1500 B.C. along with wheat and millet. It is becoming known in Malay as barli. Except for the reference in Judges, all references to barley in the Bible are non-rhetorical, so unrelated cultural equivalents are discouraged. Some receptor language speakers may coin a name for it as in Malay, or the translator can use a transliteration from Hebrew (se‘orah), Latin (horideyo), or from a major language (for example, Arabic sha’ir, Spanish cebada, French orge, Portuguese cevada, Swahili shayiri), together with a classifier, if there is one (for example, “grain of shayir”).

Barley, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also barley bread.

Translation commentary on John 6:13

So they gathered them all is literally “so they gathered,” with no expressed object. Most modern translations attempt in one way or another to indicate that the object is the pieces left over (of verse 12). It may be useful to render this first clause of verse 13 “So they gathered up all the pieces that had been left over.” It is also possible to translate “so they received back from the people all the pieces that were left over,” if one assumes that the food was gathered up in this manner (see comments on verse 12).

The size of the baskets referred to cannot be precisely determined. Elsewhere in the New Testament this word is used in Matthew 14.20; 16.9; Mark 6.43; 8.19; Luke 9.17. In Matthew 15.37; 16.10 and Mark 8.8,20, a different word for basket is used—the same word used of the basket in which Paul was lowered from the wall (Acts 9.25). These baskets were evidently fairly large. It is possible that the term in John 6.13 had a general meaning and was used for baskets of various sizes and shapes. In many receptor languages there is a term for a special type of basket used for carrying agricultural produce, and this word would be the one to use in this context.

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 .