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.

complete verse (Matthew 14:20)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 14:20:

  • Uma: “They all ate until they were full. After they ate, they gathered up the leftovers, twelve more baskets.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “They all ate and were filled. When they had finished eating the disciples of Isa gathered the left-overs, twelve baskets full.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “and every one of the people there ate and became satisfied. And as for that food, there were twelve basketfulls left over of the pieces of bread which his disciples picked up.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “They all ate and they were full. When they then gathered what as left-over, twelve baskets were filled with the scraps of food.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “All of them ate till they were full. The disciples collected what was left over, twelve baskets being filled with those broken-bits.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “All the people ate well and all were filled. When the people had finished eating, Jesus’ learners gathered up twelve baskets of bread which was left over.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Matthew 14:20

They all refers to the people in the crowd, not to the disciples.

Were satisfied (Good News Translation “had enough”) means “eat one’s fill” and may even be used of birds which gorge themselves on the flesh of slain men and animals (Rev 19.21). Elsewhere in the Gospel the verb is found in 5.6; 15.33. Here it can be rendered as “had enough to eat” or by a phrase such as “each person had as much to eat as he wanted.”

When the text says they took up, it is the disciples who did the gathering up, not the crowds. Two “they”s in the sentence can be confusing to readers. Took up can be “gathered up” or “collected.”

That the disciples took up twelve baskets full of leftovers is a further indication of the sufficiency of the meal. One scholar notes that the word translated baskets is used by an ancient writer of “the little food baskets which Jews carried so that they might eat only food prepared according to the food laws.” However, in the New Testament it probably refers to “a large, heavy basket for carrying things.” Translators in languages that have a number of different words for baskets according to the size or material should choose a basket that the disciples might reasonably have found there that people would have used for carrying produce or food. If baskets are simply unknown, then some generic word for a container can be used.

They took up twelve baskets full may be intended to suggest that each of the disciples took up one basket full.

The broken pieces left over (Good News Translation “what was left over”) is translated “the scraps remaining” by Jerusalem Bible and “the scraps left over” by New English Bible. Barclay has “of pieces of bread that were left over.”

Note that the words left over indicate that the bread the disciples gathered was not just pieces and crumbs on the ground, but bread that the people had left when they had eaten their fill.

As with the distribution, there was probably some fish picked up too, although the text does not mention it explicitly. If translators do mention the fish, however, the focus should still be on 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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Matthew 14:20

14:20a

They all ate and were satisfied: This clause indicates that everyone had plenty of food to eat. They ate as much as they wanted.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

Everyone ate and had enough (Good News Translation)
-or-
They all ate as much as they wanted (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
They all ate until they were full

Matthew did not explain when or how the five loaves of bread and two fish became enough to feed so many people until they were satisfied. If it is not clear to people in your area that Jesus caused the food to multiply, you could include some implied information. For example:

⌊Jesus multiplied the food so that⌋ they all ate and were satisfied
-or-

⌊Jesus did a miracle so that⌋ everyone had enough to eat

14:20b

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

(1) It refers to the disciples. For example:

Jesus’ disciples picked up (Contemporary English Version)

(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, New Living Translation (2004))

(2) It refers to the crowd. Looking back to the previous clause (14:20a), “they took up” would grammatically refer to the crowd.

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

Many English versions translate this literally as “they,” and 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, as the Berean Standard Bible does.

picked up: The Greek verb 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:

took up (English Standard Version)
-or-
collected (New Jerusalem Bible)

twelve basketfuls: The amount of left-over food that the disciples collected was enough to fill twelve baskets. This indicates how great the miracle was. The amount of left-over food was greater than the amount of food that Jesus started with.

The size of the baskets is not known, but they were probably medium in size. It is possible that each disciple filled one basket; perhaps his own basket that he used for carrying his things when traveling. If your language has different words for different kinds of baskets, use a word for a basket that is usually medium in size.

broken pieces that were left over: This phrase refers to the pieces of bread and fish that remained after everyone had eaten.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

the leftover pieces of food (New Century Version)
-or-
food that remained

-or-

leftovers (Contemporary English Version)

© 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.