6:43

It may be natural in some languages to begin a new sentence here. It may also be natural to include a time word. For example:

Then (Good News Bible)
-or-
After that
-or-
After they were finished eating

the disciples picked up: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the disciples picked up is literally “they picked up.” There are several ways to interpret the word “they”:

(1) It refers to the disciples. For example, the Contemporary English Version says:

Jesus’ disciples picked up

(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version)

(2) It refers to the crowd. Looking back to the previous clause (6:24), “they picked up” would grammatically refer to the crowd.

(3) It refers to the disciples and the crowd.

Many English versions translate this literally as “they.” It is not possible to tell which interpretation they follow. You may also translate this in a similar way, unless your readers will understand that only the crowd picked up the food. If your readers will understand that the disciples did not participate, then you should follow interpretation (1) and explicitly say “the disciples.”

picked up: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as picked up means to lift up and carry away. In this context it probably indicates that the disciples gathered or collected pieces of uneaten food from the crowd. They probably did not pick up crumbs from the ground.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

They collected (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
They filled

twelve basketfuls: The amount of food that the disciples collected was enough to fill twelve baskets. We do not know what kind of baskets they used. They might have been small, wicker baskets normally used by travelers or larger baskets used to carry produce to and from the marketplace. (BAGD (page 563) and Louw & Nida (page 71) define kophinos as a large basket for carrying food and produce. This view is followed by France (page 268), Swete (page 135) and Taylor (page 325). But Lenski (page 269), Hiebert (page 162) and Lane (page 231) take this basket to refer to a small wicker basket normally used by Jewish laborers and travelers to carry their food and other essentials during the day. It seems unlikely that the crowd would have run from the various towns along the lake carrying large produce baskets. If these were large baskets, they may have been in the boat used by Jesus and his disciples.) If possible, use a general word for “basket.”

If you need to use a specific word, use a word that refers to a somewhat smaller or medium-sized basket suitable for carrying food.

of broken pieces of bread and fish: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as broken pieces of bread is literally “fragments/pieces.” The Berean Standard Bible has added the information that these were fragments of bread. The fish are mentioned separately in the Greek. They were also broken fragments. The broken pieces probably refer to pieces of bread and fish that the people did not eat when the food was distributed. They were not crumbs or pieces of food that fell from the people’s mouths as they were eating.

The Contemporary English Version has another way to translate this phrase:

leftover bread and fish

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