Markchapter 8
38 verses · BSBMark book hub →
Speaks with:Matthew 16×9Mark 6×7Matthew 15×5Matthew 14×4Luke 9×4Mark 7×3
Summary
Chapter summary
Four thousand fed (seven loaves, seven baskets). Sign denied. Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod. Blind man of Bethsaida healed in stages. Mark's unique two-stage healing. Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi: 'thou art the Christ.' Narrative hinge. First passion prediction. Cross-bearing.
Context
Gospel · Mark — Mark overview
- A. 1–10 Four Thousand Fed in a Desert Place
- B. 11–21 The Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod
- C. 22–26 The Blind Man of Bethsaida Sees in Stages
- D. 27–33 You Are the Christ; Get Behind Me, Satan
- E. 34–38 Take Up the Cross and Follow Me
The outline
A.Four Thousand Fed in a Desert Placevv. 1 to 10
Read vv. 1 to 10 →B.The Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herodvv. 11 to 21
Read vv. 11 to 21 →C.The Blind Man of Bethsaida Sees in Stagesvv. 22 to 26
Read vv. 22 to 26 →D.You Are the Christ; Get Behind Me, Satanvv. 27 to 33
Read vv. 27 to 33 →E.Take Up the Cross and Follow Mevv. 34 to 38
Read vv. 34 to 38 →
The world behind this chapter
Mark 8The history
The second feeding happens in Gentile country, and the numbers differ from the first — four thousand, seven loaves, seven baskets. The disciples' blankness afterwards, with two feedings behind them, is the point Mark is making about their slowness.
Bethsaida's exact site is genuinely uncertain. Two mounds near where the Jordan enters the lake have been excavated and argued for, and scholars have not settled it. What is clear is that it lay in Philip's territory, just outside Galilee.
The blind man healed there is unique in the Gospels: the healing comes in two stages, with a first attempt leaving him seeing people like walking trees. Mark places it immediately before Peter half-sees who Jesus is — right about the title, wrong about the cross.
The saying about taking up a cross was not a figure of speech in Rome. Mark's readers had seen the condemned dragged through the streets carrying the crossbeam to the execution ground, and they knew that a man on that road was already legally dead. Some of them expected to walk it.
What it meant to them
This is the hinge of Mark. Up to here the question is who he is; from here the road runs to Jerusalem, and the first prediction of the suffering comes in this chapter.
For a church facing arrest under Nero, the demand was brutally direct: whoever wants to save his life will lose it. And the reassurance was equally direct — being ashamed of him now, in this adulterous and sinful generation, is the one thing that will be remembered when he comes in his Father's glory.
Sources cited
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
- Tacitus, The Annals
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Mark 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.