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In this section, Jesus miraculously provided food for over four thousand people. He did something similar in 14:13–21. In both of these stories Jesus began with only a small amount of food, but he caused it to miraculously multiply so there was enough for all of them to eat. Matthew told us the number of the men only, even though many women and children were also there and ate.
Here are some other possible headings for this section:
Feeding the Four Thousand (NRSV)
Four Thousand Fed (NASB)
There is a parallel passage for this section in Mark 8:1–10.
And He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then he told the crowd to sit on the ground.
Then he instructed the people to sit on the ground for eating.
And: In Greek, 15:35 begins with a common conjunction that the BSB translates as And. Here it introduces what Jesus did next.
Here are some other ways to begin this verse:
Then (NRSV)
After that
The NIV and some other English versions do not translate this word. In some languages, it will not be necessary to translate this word either.
He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground: The Greek word that the BSB translates as instructed also means “gave orders” or “commanded.” It indicates that Jesus gave instructions to the large crowd. Your translation of the word instructed should not imply that Jesus was speaking harshly to the people.
Here are some other ways to translate this clause:
Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground (NLT)
In some languages it may be more natural to use a causative expression for this phrase. For example:
caused the people to sit down
to sit down: The Greek word that the BSB translates as sit down is literally to “recline.” To recline is to sit and then lean over on the left elbow with legs outstretched to the right. This was the normal Jewish position for eating.
You may want to use the usual position that people use when they eat in your culture. This is what most English versions do.
on the ground: Jesus told the people to sit on the ground because he was about to give them food. They were in the wilderness, so they had to sit on the ground.
In some languages it may be unnecessary to specify “on the ground,” since it may be clear from the context. If that is true in your language, you may leave this phrase implicit. For example:
He told the people to sit down
Note 1 topic: figures-of-speech / explicit
ἀναπεσεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν
˓to˒_sit_down (Some words not found in SR-GNT: Καί παραγγείλας τῷ ὄχλῳ ἀναπεσεῖν ἐπί τήν γῆν)
In Jesus’ culture, people would usually recline, or lie on one side, when they were eating. If it would be helpful in your language, you could refer to the position in which people eat in your culture, or you could just refer to eating. Alternate translation: [to get ready to eat on the ground]
Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.
Acknowledgements: The SR Greek text, lemmas, morphology, and VLT gloss are all thanks to the CNTR.