Section 2
We need to be impressed with the fact that Luke wrote his Gospel from the viewpoint of the jubilee. The concept of the jubilee announced in chapter four governs all the following chapters. Therefore, we should regard what is recorded in these chapters as part of the jubilee declared in Luke 4.
If we have this view as we read 9:10-17, we shall want to see how the Man-Savior handles the situation with the hungry multitude. In verse 13 we see that "there were about five thousand men." If the women and children are counted, the number must have exceeded ten thousand. Suppose the Lord had dismissed the crowd with out feeding them, allowing them to remain hun gry. In that case there would not have been the jubilee. Some might have complained and said, "I have been here all day long, and now I am hungry. Why have we been dismissed? Where shall we go, and how shall we find food?" If this had taken place, there would have been famine instead of jubilee. But as a result of the Lord's feeding the crowd, there was a real application of the jubilee. Everyone was satisfied, and there was an abundance of food left over.
In 9:12 the apostles said to the Lord, "Send the crowd away, that they may go into the surrounding