Charles Ellicott Commentary John 6:9

"There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are these among so many?" — John 6:9 (ASV)

Again, the account of the eyewitness is fuller and lifelike. All tell of the five loaves and two fishes. John knows that they are barley loaves—the ordinary black bread of the Galilean peasant—and that the loaves and fishes are not the property of the disciples, but of a lad or slave who has followed the crowd, in the hope, it may be, of finding a purchaser for them.

The word for “lad” is a diminutive occurring only here (not in the best text of Matthew 11:16), and in many manuscripts is accompanied by “one.” The word may mean a servant, but it more probably means a child. One lad! What could he provide for so many?

Two small fishes.—Better, two fishes. This word, too, is rightly regarded as a diminutive, but it is not a diminutive of “fish.” The original root means to boil; thus, the substantive is used, as in Homer, of boiled meat, and then of anything eaten as a relish with bread, and especially of fish. This diminutive is used in the New Testament only here, in John 6:11, John 21:9–10, and John 21:13. A comparison of the passages will make it clear that Saint John means by the word the ordinary relish of fish, which formed, with bread, the staple food of the people.

The whole force of Andrew’s remark, with its diminutive words, rests upon the smallness of their power to help, while Philip had dwelt on the greatness of the need.