The Fallible Study Bible

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2 Kings4:42–44

Feeding a Hundred Men

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2 Kings 4:42–44 — Feeding a Hundred Men. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

42

Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·’îš mib·ba·‘al šā·li·šāh way·yā·ḇê bā lə·’îš hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm bə·ṣiq·lō·nōw ‘eś·rîm- le·ḥem śə·‘ō·rîm le·ḥem bik·kū·rîm wə·ḵar·mel tên lā·‘ām wə·yō·ḵê·lū way·yō·mer

Word by word18 · parsed
וְאִ֨ישׁwə·’îšNow a manH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
ʼîysh: a man, an individual The donor is never named, and neither is his motive stated. He is the counterweight to every named king in the surrounding chapters: the book records his act and withholds his identity. Poole draws the sociological inference from this one anonymous case, that by it “we might understand how so many schools of the prophets were supported.”
מִבַּ֣עַלmib·ba·‘alvvvH1190
√ Baʻal Shâlishâh — Baal of Shalishah, Baal-Shalishah, a place in PalestinePreposition
שָׁלִ֗שָׁהšā·li·šāhfrom Baal-shalishahH1190
√ Baʻal Shâlishâh — Baal of Shalishah, Baal-Shalishah, a place in PalestinePrepositionNounproperfeminine singular
Baʻal Shâlishâh: a place in Palestine Named only here in the whole Bible, though “the land of Shalishah” appears at 1 Samuel 9:4. Ellicott and Barnes place it about fifteen Roman miles north of Lydda; Pulpit reads “north” as probably northeast and puts it not far from the Gilgal of 2 Kings 4:38. Its name carries Baal, the very name Elijah fought: the firstfruits of YHWH come out of a town called for the rival god.
וַיָּבֵא֩way·yā·ḇê. . .H935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
bôwʼ: to come, to bring (Hifil) The causative stem turns coming into carrying, and it is the ordinary Hebrew verb for bringing a thing to where it is offered. ⚙ That fits what the object turns out to be: not provisions but firstfruits, the portion Numbers 18:13 and Deuteronomy 18:4 direct to the sanctuary, here carried instead to a prophet in Gilgal because, as Barnes and Pulpit explain, there was no lawful priest left in the north to carry it to. Every later verb in the unit is a verb of transfer (give, set before, eat, leave over), and this Hifil starts the chain: one man moves food toward the prophet, and the prophet immediately moves it on.
בָּ֜אbācameH935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
Qal perfect of the same root, “he came.” The doubled verb is a Hebrew narrative habit, not redundancy.
לְאִ֨ישׁlə·’îšto the manH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personPreposition-lNounmasculine singular construct
הָאֱלֹהִ֜יםhā·’ĕ·lō·hîmof GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseArticleNounmasculine plural
ʼĕlôhîym: God Literally “the man of the God,” with the article: the title is definite and official, the standing designation of Elisha in this chapter. It matters for the transaction: the offering is not personal charity to a holy man but a dues-payment to God’s recognized representative, which is exactly how K&D and Pulpit account for a layman handing priestly firstfruits to a prophet.
בְּצִקְלֹנ֑וֹbə·ṣiq·lō·nōwwith a sackH6861
√ tsiqlôn — a sack (as tied at the mouth)Preposition-bNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
tsiqlôn: a sack, tied at the mouth A word that exists in this one verse and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, so its sense is reconstructed from context and versions rather than known. K&D turns the sack into an argument: the whole gift fit in one man’s bag, which is the measure of how little there was for a hundred men.
עֶשְׂרִֽים־‘eś·rîm-of twentyH6242
√ ʻesrîym — twentyNumbercommon plural
לֶ֤חֶםle·ḥemloavesH3899
√ lechem — food (for man or beast), especially bread, or grain (for making it)Nounmasculine singular construct
lechem: bread, food, grain Construct with barley: barley loaves, the poor man’s bread, and in a famine the only bread. Pulpit warns against the modern picture: these “loaves” were cakes or rolls, one to a person at a meal, so twenty would be barely sufficient for twenty men.
שְׂעֹרִ֔יםśə·‘ō·rîmof barleyH8184
√ sᵉʻôrâh — barley (as villose)Nounfeminine plural
לֶ֣חֶםle·ḥembreadH3899
√ lechem — food (for man or beast), especially bread, or grain (for making it)Nounmasculine singular construct
בִּכּוּרִים֙bik·kū·rîmfrom the firstH1061
√ bikkûwr — the first-fruits of the cropNounmasculine plural
bikkûwr: the firstfruits of the crop A rare word (15 verses) belonging to the sacrificial calendar. Leviticus 23:14 forbids eating new grain until the offering has been made, and Leviticus 23:17 calls the two waved Pentecost loaves bread of firstfruits. Gill notes exactly this restriction: the green ears “might not be eaten until the firstfruits were offered, and then they might.” The gift is therefore also a release: once presented, the harvest becomes lawful food.
וְכַרְמֶ֖לwə·ḵar·melripe grainH3759
√ karmel — a planted field (garden, orchard, vineyard or park)Conjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
karmel: fresh, plump grain (also a planted field) Another rare word (15 verses), and in the Law it appears only at Leviticus 2:14 and Leviticus 23:14, both about the firstfruits offering of green ears parched with fire. Cambridge: its leading idea is newness. The same consonants elsewhere name a fertile field or orchard (Isaiah 29:17, Jeremiah 2:7), so the word itself is the harvest concentrated into a handful.
תֵּ֥ןtênGiveH5414
√ nâthan — to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etcVerbQalImperativemasculine singular
nâthan: to give Qal imperative, masculine singular, addressed to one servant. This one verb governs the unit: it is commanded here, repeated in v. 43, and executed in v. 44 (wayyitten). What arrives as a private due to the prophet is redirected in a single syllable. Henry: “Having freely received, he freely gave.”
לָעָ֖םlā·‘āmit to the peopleH5971
√ ʻam — a people (as a congregated unit)Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular
ʻam: a people, a congregated unit Not “the students” but “the people,” the word for a gathered body. Poole, Pulpit and K&D identify them with the sons of the prophets at Gilgal from v. 38; the noun quietly makes a hundred hungry men into a congregation being fed.
וְיֹאכֵֽלוּ׃wə·yō·ḵê·lūto eatH398
√ ʼâkal — to eat (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConjunctive imperfectthird person masculine plural
Conjunctive imperfect after the imperative: “and let them eat,” the purpose folded into the command, not an English infinitive.
וַיֹּ֕אמֶרway·yō·mersaid ElishaH559
√ ʼâmar — to say (used with great latitude)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
“And he said.” The speaker is unnamed in Hebrew; see the divergence note.
43

But his servant asked, “How am I to set twenty loaves before a hundred men?” “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha, “for this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

mə·šā·rə·ṯōw way·yō·mer māh ’et·tên zeh lip̄·nê mê·’āh ’îš tên lā·‘ām wə·yō·ḵê·lū way·yō·mer kî ḵōh Yah·weh ’ā·mar ’ā·ḵōl wə·hō·w·ṯêr

Word by word18 · parsed
מְשָׁ֣רְת֔וֹmə·šā·rə·ṯōwBut his servantH8334
√ shârath — to attend as a menial or worshipperVerbPielParticiplemasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
shârath: to attend, minister (Piel participle) The participle names a standing office, not an errand. It is the word used of Joshua serving Moses and of Levites serving at the sanctuary, which is why Cambridge judges that Gehazi, Elisha’s special attendant, is meant. The narrative irony is sharp: the man whose whole vocation is to hand things out is the one who argues about handing this out, and within a dozen verses (2 Kings 5) his relation to a gift will destroy him.
וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙way·yō·meraskedH559
√ ʼâmar — to say (used with great latitude)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
מָ֚הmāhHowH4100
√ mâh — properly, interrogative what? (including how? why? when?)Interrogative
Interrogative mâh, “what?” Ellicott would render the whole clause “How am I to set?”
אֶתֵּ֣ן’et·tênam I to setH5414
√ nâthan — to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etcVerbQalImperfectfirst person common singular
nâthan: to give (Qal imperfect, 1cs) The servant takes the prophet’s imperative tên and throws it back as a first-person imperfect, “shall I give?” Same root, opposite posture: command answered by arithmetic. The whole unit turns on whether this verb is obeyed or debated.
זֶ֔הzehtwenty loavesH2088
√ zeh — the masculine demonstrative pronoun, this or thatPronounmasculine singular
A bare “this,” dismissive; see the divergence note.
לִפְנֵ֖יlip̄·nêbeforeH6440
√ pânîym — the face (as the part that turns)Preposition-lNouncommon plural construct
מֵ֣אָהmê·’āha hundredH3967
√ mêʼâh — a hundredNumberfeminine singular
mêʼâh: a hundred Cambridge reads the number as the probable size of the prophetic college at Gilgal, gathered in full because Elisha was visiting. Set against twenty small barley cakes, the figure is the servant’s entire argument, and the narrator lets the arithmetic stand unanswered.
אִ֑ישׁ’îšmenH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personNounmasculine singular
תֵּ֤ןtênGiveH5414
√ nâthan — to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etcVerbQalImperativemasculine singular
The imperative tên repeated verbatim from v. 42. Elisha does not explain; he reissues. Benson: “Do as I order you, and make no objections.”
לָעָם֙lā·‘āmit to the peopleH5971
√ ʻam — a people (as a congregated unit)Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular
וְיֹאכֵ֔לוּwə·yō·ḵê·lūto eatH398
√ ʼâkal — to eat (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConjunctive imperfectthird person masculine plural
וַיֹּ֗אמֶרway·yō·mersaid ElishaH559
√ ʼâmar — to say (used with great latitude)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
כִּ֣יkîforH3588
√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction
Causal kîy, “for.” Only on the second command does a reason arrive.
כֹ֥הḵōhthis is whatH3541
√ kôh — properly, like this, iAdverb
יְהוָ֖הYah·wehthe LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh: the covenant name The name enters the unit here for the first time, and everything before it was transaction. Once it is spoken the bread stops being a quantity and becomes a promise, and v. 44 will close by measuring the outcome against “the word of YHWH.”
אָמַ֛ר’ā·marsaysH559
√ ʼâmar — to say (used with great latitude)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
אָכֹ֥ל’ā·ḵōlThey will eatH398
√ ʼâkal — to eat (literally or figuratively)VerbQalInfinitive absolute
ʼâkal: to eat (infinitive absolute) Tenseless, subjectless: “eating.” The infinitive absolute in oracular speech states the bare event rather than assigning it to anyone, which is why the result in v. 44 can be reported in finite verbs as simple fulfilment.
וְהוֹתֵֽר׃wə·hō·w·ṯêrand have [some] left overH3498
√ yâthar — to jut over or exceedConjunctive wawVerbHifilInfinitive absolute
yâthar: to jut over, to exceed (Hifil infinitive absolute) The decisive word of the unit, and the one that separates a miracle from a tight meal: not “they will have enough” but “and causing to be left over.” Leftovers are the proof, because a surplus cannot be explained by modest appetites. Geneva puts the theology in one line: it is not the quantity of bread that satisfies but the blessing God gives.
44

So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yit·tên lip̄·nê·hem way·yō·ḵə·lū way·yō·w·ṯi·rū kiḏ·ḇar Yah·weh

Word by word6 · parsed
וַיִּתֵּ֧ןway·yit·tênSo he set [it]H5414
√ nâthan — to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etcConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
nâthan: to give Consecutive imperfect, third masculine singular: the servant simply does it. No reply to his objection is recorded, no second miracle-working gesture, no prayer. Compare the pattern in 2 Kings 4:1-7 and 4:34, where Elisha acts; here he only speaks, and someone else’s hands distribute.
לִפְנֵיהֶ֛םlip̄·nê·hembefore themH6440
√ pânîym — the face (as the part that turns)Preposition-lNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine plural
“To their faces.” See the divergence note.
וַיֹּאכְל֥וּway·yō·ḵə·lūand they ateH398
√ ʼâkal — to eat (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
ʼâkal: to eat Third masculine plural, the promised infinitive absolute now given a subject. In a chapter that opened with a widow’s empty jar and continued with death in the pot, the plain report that a hundred men ate is the chapter’s quietest and largest claim.
וַיּוֹתִ֖רוּway·yō·w·ṯi·rūand had [some] left overH3498
√ yâthar — to jut over or exceedConjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
yâthar: to leave over, to exceed (Hifil) The surplus is the evidence, and the commentators divide precisely over it. Ellicott records that Bähr denied any increase of the food and located the miracle in the men being satisfied by little; Pulpit answers that the analogy of the Lord’s feedings makes a real increase probable; Cambridge admits the text does not say. The Hebrew itself reports only the outcome and not the mechanism.
כִּדְבַ֥רkiḏ·ḇaraccording to the wordH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordPreposition-kNounmasculine singular construct
dâbâr: a word The unit ends where 1 Kings 17:16 ends, on fulfilment measured by the spoken word. Nothing here is attributed to Elisha’s power; the surplus is indexed to a sentence. This is the strongest textual support for K&D’s and JFB’s claim that Elisha predicted rather than performed.
יְהוָֽה׃פYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
The covenant name closes the unit, as it opened the oracle in v. 43.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A priestly due carried to the wrong address — 4:42

The unit opens with an unnamed man walking out of a town whose name begins with Baal, carrying לֶחֶם בִּכּוּרִים, bread of firstfruits, which the Law (Numbers 18:13; Deuteronomy 18:4) assigns to priests. He gives it to a prophet. Every major voice in the brief notices the irregularity and accounts for it the same way. Barnes: the Levitical priests having withdrawn from the land of Israel (2 Chronicles 11:13-14), pious Israelites transferred to the prophets the offerings the Law required for the priests. Pulpit adds that the pious regarded the prophets as having inherited the position of the priests whom Jeroboam’s innovations had driven from the country. Poole is the most candid about the legal problem, judging that those ceremonial institutions “ought to give place to the greater laws of necessity and mercy,” and then drawing the practical conclusion that by this one instance we learn how the schools of the prophets were supported at all. K&D turns the same fact into an argument about the northern kingdom: godly men did not regard Jeroboam’s state-church as legitimate worship and found in the schools of the prophets a substitute for the lawful worship of God. Cambridge, more cautiously, allows that the gift may have accompanied an enquiry, as at 1 Samuel 9:7, and calls it a token that the law of Jehovah was not forgotten by some in the north. The gift is also, on any reading, extraordinarily badly timed: Ellicott notes that the construction ties this to the preceding narrative, which is a time of dearth. A man brings away, in a famine, the one part of the harvest he is least free to keep.

ii. The arithmetic and the imperative — 4:42-43

Elisha does not thank the donor and does not eat. He says one word, תֵּן, give. The attendant answers with a sum. Cambridge establishes that the attendant is not the ordinary servant of this chapter but a mᵉshârêth, a minister, the word used of Joshua under Moses, and concludes with Gill that Gehazi is meant. His objection is sound. Pulpit: the servant felt the quantity was quite insufficient and thought it absurd to invite a hundred men to a meal which would not satisfy a fifth of them. Poole agrees the loaves were small, reasoning that one man carried them all that distance. K&D reaches the same verdict from the hapax tsiqlôn: the entire gift fit in a sack. The Hebrew objection is even barer than the English, a demonstrative thrown at a number, “this, before a hundred men?” Elisha’s reply repeats the imperative without modification and only then supplies a ground: thus says YHWH. Benson: “Do as I order you, and make no objections.” Gill reads the ground as prophetic disclosure, that it was suggested to Elisha by a spirit of prophecy that there would be enough and to spare. The oracle itself is two infinitive absolutes, אָכֹל וְהוֹתֵר, verbs without subject or tense; Ellicott calls the form an exclamatory mode of speech natural in hurried and vehement utterance, and K&D marks the grammar (Ewald 328a). Notice what the oracle does not contain: no petition, no gesture, no salt, no meal thrown in the pot as in v. 41. Only a sentence.

iii. The surplus, and what the text refuses to explain — 4:44

The report is four clauses long: he gave, they ate, they left over, according to the word of YHWH. The last phrase is the verdict. JFB presses it into a distinction: “This was not a miracle of Elisha, but only a prediction of one by the word of the Lord,” and so it differed widely from those of Christ. K&D agrees, and draws the conclusion that the object of the account is not to relate another miracle of Elisha but to show how the Lord cared for His servants. Pulpit flatly rejects that conclusion, holding that the writer certainly does mean to relate another miracle, of a different kind from those before. On the mechanism the commentators divide further. Ellicott records Bähr’s denial of any increase of the food, locating the wonder in the men being satisfied with little, and Thenius’s judgement that the emphasis falls on Elisha’s confidence in God rather than his wonder-working, and then rules both “opposed to the sacred writer’s intention.” Cambridge concedes the ambiguity honestly, that there is not much dwelling on increase and we are left to accept the result either way. ⚙ The disagreement is real and the Hebrew does not settle it, because the Hebrew reports an outcome (the Hifil wayyôṯirû, they produced a surplus) and never a method. What it does settle is causation: the meal is measured against a dâbâr, and against nothing else. Geneva states the resulting theology in one sentence: it is not the quantity of bread that satisfies, but the blessing that God gives.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Fallible reading, offered to be tested. Read the three verses as a single exchange of hands and the shape appears: a man gives away what he owes to God, a prophet gives away what he has just received, a servant gives away what he is certain is not enough, and a hundred men end the day with more than they started. Nothing in the unit is retained by anyone. That is the whole mechanism the text will show us, and it is the reason the word nâthan occurs four times in three verses while no verb of miracle-working occurs at all. Elisha never touches the food. He does not pray over it as at 4:33, does not throw in meal as at 4:41, does not stretch himself over it as at 4:34. He repeats an imperative and cites a sentence. ⚙ So the honest reading of this passage is not primarily about multiplication, which the Hebrew never describes, but about the ordering of a word and the obedience of a hand: a surplus appears in the gap between a command that made no arithmetic sense and a servant who carried it out anyway. The servant is the hinge, and his name, if Cambridge and Gill are right that this is Gehazi, makes the next chapter unbearable: the man who here learns that giving away a gift yields a surplus will shortly run after Naaman to keep one, and take leprosy home instead. ⚙ I hold this loosely: Bähr and Thenius may be right that no bread increased, and if so nothing here changes, because the text credits the outcome to the word either way.

⚙ Not a verse, a fallible reading: no one in this account keeps anything, and that is the only mechanism the text agrees to show us.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Karmel and bikkurim: the two words of the firstfruits law verbal / quotation: confirmed

The two rare nouns of v. 42 meet in the Law and almost nowhere else. כַּרְמֶל (karmel, H3759) and בִּכּוּרִים (bikkûwr, H1061) both appear at Leviticus 2:14, the grain offering of firstfruits, green ears parched with fire; karmel appears again at Leviticus 23:14, which forbids eating bread or parched grain from the new harvest until the offering has been brought. Ellicott names both passages as the only other places the word occurs. Gill applies the second directly: the green ears “might not be eaten until the firstfruits were offered, and then they might.” K&D glosses the word from the same Levitical comment. The Verifier confirms the lexical overlap. So the man from Baal-shalishah is not simply generous, he is discharging a statute, and the meal that follows is lawful only because he did.

Leviticus 2:14 · Leviticus 23:14

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3759 karmel (in 15 vv) and H1061 bikkûwr (in 15 vv) at Leviticus 2:14; H3759 karmel (in 15 vv) shared with Leviticus 23:14. Both are rare lexemes and both Levitical texts concern the same firstfruits grain offering. This is a verbal link and a legal allusion, not a formal citation: 2 Kings quotes no Levitical sentence.

Loaves of firstfruits: the Pentecost wave offering structural / thematic: confirmed

The construct לֶחֶם בִּכּוּרִים has one close scriptural neighbour: Leviticus 23:17 calls the two wave loaves of the Feast of Weeks bread of firstfruits, and Leviticus 23:20 repeats the pairing. In the Law the loaves of firstfruits are lifted before YHWH and then belong to the priest. In 2 Kings 4 they are handed to a prophet and immediately redistributed to a hundred men. ⚙ The pattern is the same and the destination is not, which is the whole historical point Pulpit and K&D make about the northern kingdom, where there was no lawful altar to lift them at. We claim a shared motif and a shared phrase, not a quotation.

Leviticus 23:17 · Leviticus 23:20

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1061 bikkûwr (in 15 vv, rare) and H3899 lechem (in 277 vv, common) at both Leviticus 23:17 and 23:20. The rare lexeme supports a real verbal contact, but we decline the verbal tier because the shared phrase is a standing legal term rather than a quoted sentence.

The priest's due paid to a prophet structural / thematic: confirmed

Numbers 18:13 and Deuteronomy 18:4 assign the firstfruits of grain, new wine and oil to the priests and Levites. Every commentator in this brief who treats v. 42 cites one or both: Ellicott, Barnes, Poole, Pulpit and K&D. Barnes supplies the historical mechanism from 2 Chronicles 11:13-14, that the Levitical priests had withdrawn out of the northern kingdom, so pious Israelites transferred their offerings to the prophets God raised up. Cambridge compares 1 Samuel 9:7, where a present is brought to the seer. Poole is the most theologically direct, judging that the ceremonial institution gave place to the greater laws of necessity and mercy.

Numbers 18:13 · Deuteronomy 18:4 · 2 Chronicles 11:13-14 · 1 Samuel 9:7

basis: No Verifier lexeme link: these references do not appear in the computed thread candidates for this unit, so no shared Strong's basis is claimed. The recorded basis is the shared legal institution of firstfruits, cited independently for this verse by Ellicott, Barnes, Poole, Pulpit, K&D and Cambridge.

Barley loaves and baskets left over typological

John 6:9 is the one feeding in the Gospels where the loaves are specified as barley, the poor grain of 2 Kings 4:42, and John 6:12-13 is the one that dwells on the fragments that remained. Barnes lists the correspondences item by item: distribution through the hands of others, the material bread, the surprised question of the servant, and the evidence of superfluity in the fragments left. K&D names Matthew 14:16 and John 6:11-12 and calls this food a type of the miraculous feeding by Christ. Cambridge and Gill point to the same passages. ⚙ This is a cross-Testament link and therefore cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers at all: Hebrew seʻôrâh and Greek krithinos are different lexical stocks, and no verbal claim is possible or made.

John 6:9 · John 6:11-13 · Matthew 14:16-21

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew: a shared-lexeme basis is impossible in principle, so no verbal tier is available. The recorded basis is a five-point structural correspondence (barley loaves, a small stated quantity, an objection from an attendant, distribution by another's hands, a stated surplus) plus the explicit typological reading of K&D, Barnes, Benson, Gill, Pulpit and Cambridge. Ancient and widely held, not novel.

The jar that did not empty, the pot that did not fail structural / thematic: confirmed

This is the third scarcity miracle in the Elijah and Elisha cycle to end with a formula of fulfilment: the widow of Zarephath's flour and oil, which did not fail, and which 1 Kings 17:16 credits to the word of the LORD spoken through Elijah; the widow's oil poured out until the vessels ran out (2 Kings 4:1-7), and here. Henry connects the pattern to a promise: God has promised his church that he will abundantly bless her provision and satisfy her poor with bread, Psalm 132:15; “whom he feeds, he fills; and what he blesses, comes to much.” ⚙ The recurring element is not the quantity but the closing clause, כִּדְבַר יְהוָה: in each case the narrator declines to praise the prophet and credits the word.

1 Kings 17:14-16 · 2 Kings 4:1-7 · Psalm 132:15

basis: No Verifier lexeme link computed for these references in this unit's candidate list, so no shared Strong's basis is claimed. The recorded basis is the repeated narrative pattern (famine or want, a small measured quantity, a prophetic word, a fulfilment clause naming the word of YHWH) plus Matthew Henry's own citation of Psalm 132:15 on this passage.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

Twenty loaves before a hundred, five before five thousand ancient/widely-held

The oldest Christian reading of this passage is that it rehearses the feeding of the multitude, and the brief's voices are nearly unanimous. K&D: the food, so blessed by the word of the Lord that a hundred men were satisfied by so small a quantity and left some over, “forms a type of the miraculous feeding of the people by Christ,” citing Matthew 14:16 and John 6:11-12. Barnes calls it a faint foreshadowing of a far more marvellous feeding, and lists the minute particulars that match. Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and Ellicott all point to the same Gospel scenes; Pulpit calls this a manifest type. Benson generalizes: the similitude between the miracles of Elijah and Elisha and those of Jesus is very striking, and may be considered a proof that they all acted by the power of one and the same Spirit. ⚙ The detail the voices do not press is the barley. John 6:9 keeps the poor grain of 2 Kings 4:42 in the hands of a boy, and John 6:12-13 keeps the surplus, twelve baskets of what was left over, where this text keeps only the bare Hifil “they left over.” The sign is enlarged, not invented.

Matthew 14:16-21 · John 6:9-13 · Matthew 15:32-38

Thus says the LORD, and But I say to you novel

JFB draws the line the other commentators blur: “This was not a miracle of Elisha, but only a prediction of one by the word of the Lord. Thus it differed widely from those of Christ.” Ellicott credits Keil with the same observation, that Elisha does not perform but only predicts. The Hebrew supports them: the unit contains no act of power by Elisha, only the messenger formula and a closing measurement, according to the word of YHWH. ⚙ Read redemptive-historically, that is precisely the difference the Gospels stage. Elisha must cite a word given to him; in John 6:11 Jesus gives thanks and distributes on his own authority, and the crowd's verdict is that this is the prophet who is to come. The greatest prophet of the northern kingdom is here a relay, and the type is honoured, not diminished, by saying so: what Elisha transmits, Christ speaks as his own. ⚙ The contrast itself is JFB's and Keil's; the christological inference drawn from it is ours and is offered for testing.

John 6:11-14 · Matthew 5:22 · Hebrews 1:1-2

Firstfruits given away novel

⚙ What feeds the hundred is specifically בִּכּוּרִים, firstfruits: the portion that by law belongs to God and may not be eaten by the one who grew it until it has been offered (Leviticus 23:14). It is handed over, and in the handing over it becomes food for a whole community. Paul takes the same noun into the resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20), the portion offered first so that the whole harvest follows. ⚙ We mark this as our own reading. None of the commentators in this brief makes the firstfruits-to-Christ connection here; they take bikkurim as a matter of priestly dues and stop. The figural step is ours, and the legal fact it rests on (Gill, Ellicott, Barnes, Poole, K&D) is not.

1 Corinthians 15:20-23 · Leviticus 23:14 · Romans 11:16

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) צִקְלוֹן (tsiqlôn, v. 42) is a hapax legomenon; Barnes says it does not occur elsewhere in Scripture and K&D marks it ἁπ. λεγ. Its meaning is reconstructed from the versions, which disagree: Ellicott and Cambridge record the Vulgate's pera (wallet or scrip), the Syriac's “garment,” a transliteration in the Alexandrine LXX, and an omission in the Vatican LXX. “Sack” is the best available guess, not a known value. (2) The Vatican LXX also reads “cakes of pressed fruit” (παλάθας) where the Hebrew has karmel, and Cambridge notes the LXX omits “so he set it before them” at the head of v. 44. Our text throughout is the Masoretic Hebrew behind BSB. (3) The commentators genuinely disagree about what happened, and we have not concealed it: Bähr (via Ellicott) denied any increase of the food; Thenius shifted the emphasis to Elisha's confidence in God; Ellicott rejected both as against the writer's intention; K&D and JFB held that Elisha predicted rather than performed the miracle; Pulpit held that the writer certainly does mean to record a miracle and probably a real increase; Cambridge left the question open. The Hebrew reports an outcome and never a mechanism, so we have not resolved it either. (4) The attendant's identity as Gehazi is an inference, made by Gill (“very probably”) and Cambridge (“it seems likely”) from the word mᵉshârêth and from context, not a statement of the text. (5) The place Baal-shalishah is named only here; the identification with Beth-shalisha and the distance from Lydda come from Eusebius and Jerome as reported by Ellicott, Barnes, Pulpit and Cambridge, and are not in Scripture. (6) Threads to Numbers 18:13, Deuteronomy 18:4, 1 Kings 17, Psalm 132:15 and the Gospels carry no Verifier-computed shared-lexeme basis; their bases are stated as what they are, commentator citation and structural pattern. Cross-Testament links here are tiered typological and never verbal, because a shared Strong's basis between Hebrew and Greek is impossible.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)