Mark 8:17

Mark here (vv. Matthew 17-20 ) gives six keen questions of Jesus while Matthew 16:8-11 gives as four that really include the six of Mark running some together. The questions reveal the disappointment of Jesus at the intellectual dulness of his pupils. The questions concern the intellect (noeite, from nou, suniete, comprehend), the heart in a hardened state (pepwrwmenhn, perfect passive predicate participle as in Mark 6:52 , which see), the eyes, the ears, the memory of both the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand here sharply distinguished even to the two kinds of baskets (kopinou, spuridwn). The disciples did recall the number of baskets left over in each instance, twelve and seven. Jesus "administers a sharp rebuke for their preoccupation with mere temporalities, as if there were nothing higher to be thought of than bread" (Bruce). "For the time the Twelve are way-side hearers, with hearts like a beaten path, into which the higher truths cannot sink so as to germinate" (Bruce).