(9, 10) How many baskets.--The distinction between the two kinds of baskets--the cophini and the spurides--is, as before noticed (Note on Matthew 15:37), strictly observed here.

Verses 9, 10. - Christ, in support of his reproof, refers to the two miracles of the multiplication of food, which ought to have assured them of his care and power. Do ye not yet understand? So he asked in Matthew 15:16, "Are ye also yet without understanding?" Their heart was hardened, and they failed to apprehend the spiritual bearing of the incidents. Neither remember? This was an additional ground for censure, that they even forgot the facts at the very time when they ought to have been recalled to their memory. Jesus reminds them of the distinctive differences between the two miracles, mentioning even the receptacles in which the fragments were collected - in the one case κόφινοι, small baskets, and in the other σπυρίδες, large panniers. It is surely wilful perversity that has deemed these two incidents, thus pointedly disjoined by our Lord, as versions of one story; and yet this is what some modern critics have suggested and upheld.

16:5-12 Christ speaks of spiritual things under a similitude, and the disciples misunderstand him of carnal things. He took it ill that they should think him as thoughtful about bread as they were; that they should be so little acquainted with his way of preaching. Then understood they what he meant. Christ teaches by the Spirit of wisdom in the heart, opening the understanding to the Spirit of revelation in the word.Do ye not understand,.... Meaning either the sense of the advice he had now given; or rather his almighty power displayed in the two miracles of feeding five thousand at one time, and four thousand at another, with a very small quantity of provision; for to this the word "understand" refers, as well as the following:

neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Have you forgot what was so lately done, namely, the feeding five thousand men, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fishes, when ye took up, after all were filled and satisfied, no less than twelve baskets of fragments? And can you, after this, distrust my power in the care of you? Have I fed so many with so small a quantity of food? and am I not able to feed twelve of you, though you have but one loaf? Why all these anxious thoughts and carnal reasonings?