The feeding of the crowd in the wilderness was extraordinarily important to Jesus and his earliest followers, for accounts describing it appear no less than six times across all four gospels (Mark 6:32-44 // Matt 14:13-21 // Luke 9:10-17; Mark 8:1-10 // Matt 15:32-39; John 6:1-13). Today’s Marcan account highlights Jesus’s feelings; “his heart was moved with pity for them,” echoing the compassion in the Lord shepherding his people in Jeremiah, the first reading. Readers familiar with the Bible will not be surprised at the depiction of Jesus as a shepherd. Shepherd was a favorite image of kings throughout the ancient Near East, for the majority of the population of Israel and its neighbors were engaged in agricultural work, either working in fields and pastures or processing the produce and animals for food and clothing. Prophets denounced uncaring kings as wicked (e.g., Isa 10:17; Ezek 34:8). In this scene, Jesus is revealed as a good shepherd after the model of Moses (Exod 3:1) and David (2 Sam 7:8) by his teaching (Mark 6:34), leading the people (Mark 6:39), and feeding them (Mark 6:41-42). The later emphasis in Christian tradition of “word and sacrament” are already found here.
Those familiar with the Bible will recognize Old Testament motifs in the passage, such as the prophet Elisha’s feeding of a hundred people from twenty loaves despite his servants’ protests (2 Kings 4:42-44). Even more impressive, the feeding in the wilderness recalls God’s providing manna on the people on their journey from Egyptian slavery to their own land, Canaan. Exodus is unstated background for much of Jesus’s life and ministry. The provision of food looks forward to the Last Supper in its vocabulary. In Mark 14:22-23, Jesus takes the five loaves and two fishes, blesses, breaks, and gives them to the disciples to set before the people (v. 41). That language occurs again in the accounts of the Last Supper.
In short, the scene portrays Jesus as the New Moses feeding the people in the wilderness in a new exodus, and the New David as the good shepherd who renews of my life (literal, “restores my soul”) and leads them along the right paths (Psalm 23:2-3).