Mark 8:2

2 I have pity for these people because they have been with me now three days, and have no food;

Mark 8:2 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 8:2

I have compassion on the multitude
Christ is a compassionate Saviour both of the bodies and souls of men: he had compassion on the souls of this multitude, and therefore had been teaching them sound doctrine and he had compassion on the bodies of many of them, and had healed them of their diseases; and his bowels yearned towards them all;

because,
says he,

they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat;
for if they brought any food with them, it was all spent, and they were in a wilderness, where nothing was to be got; where they had no house to go into, nor bed to lie upon, and no provisions to be bought; and in this case they had been two nights and three days; which showed great affection and zeal in these people, and a close attachment to Christ, in exposing themselves to all these difficulties and hardships, which they seemed to bear with much patience and unconcernedness. The Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions prefix the word "behold" to this clause, as expressing admiration at their stay with him so long in such a place.

Mark 8:2 In-Context

1 In those days again, when there was a great mass of people and they had no food, he made his disciples come to him and said to them,

2 I have pity for these people because they have been with me now three days, and have no food;

3 If I send them away to their houses with no food, they will be overcome by weariness on the way; and some of them have come from far.

4 And his disciples said in answer, How will it be possible to get enough bread for these men here in a waste place?

5 And he put the question, How much bread have you? And they said, Seven cakes.