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Mark 6

KJV · Chapter 6/16

1And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.

2And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

4But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

5And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

6And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

7And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;

8And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:

9But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.

10And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place.

11And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

12And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

13And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.

14And king Herod heard of him; (for his name was spread abroad:) and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.

15Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.

16But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.

17For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her.

18For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.

19Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not:

20For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.

21And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee;

22And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.

23And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.

24And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

25And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist.

26And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her.

27And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison,

28And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother.

29And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.

30And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.

31And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

32And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.

33And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him.

34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

35And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed:

36Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.

37He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?

38He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.

39And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.

40And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.

41And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

42And they did all eat, and were filled.

43And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.

44And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.

45And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.

46And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.

47And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land.

48And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

49But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out:

50For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.

51And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.

52For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

53And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore.

54And when they were come out of the ship, straightway they knew him,

55And ran through that whole region round about, and began to carry about in beds those that were sick, where they heard he was.

56And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jesus is rejected in his hometown, sends the twelve disciples out on a mission, Herod has John the Baptist beheaded, and Jesus feeds about five thousand people and then walks on the sea toward the disciples' boat.

Explanation

The rejection in Nazareth, where people had known him since childhood as 'the carpenter, the son of Mary,' shows how familiarity can, paradoxically, keep people from recognizing something extraordinary right in front of them. The account of John the Baptist's death is inserted as a pause in the narrative of the disciples' mission, showing the real cost of proclaiming the truth to powerful figures like Herod Antipas. The multiplication of the loaves, with the crowd organized into groups of fifty and a hundred, reveals practical, orderly care on Jesus' part, not just a spontaneous, chaotic miracle. Walking on the sea before dawn, and Mark's comment that the disciples had not 'understood about the loaves' because their hearts were hardened, points to how slow human beings can be to recognize clear signs of God's power.

Fun facts

  • 'Carpenter' in the culture of the time included work with stone and other building materials, not just wood, suggesting that Jesus had solid, practical, hands-on training before his public ministry.
  • Herod Antipas, referred to here as 'king,' technically held only the title of tetrarch (ruler of a fourth part of a territory), but was popularly called king by the local population.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Mark 6:1Nazareth was the town where Jesus had grown up, and returning there with His disciples meant reappearing before people who had known Him since childhood.
  2. Mark 6:2The crowd’s questions mix admiration and suspicion: they recognize the wisdom and the miracles, but can’t square it with the image they already had of Him as an ordinary neighbor.
  3. Mark 6:3Calling someone “the son of Mary” instead of naming the father, in a culture where identity came from the father, already sounded odd — maybe an indirect way of noting that Joseph had likely died, or even a spiteful jab at Jesus’s parentage. “The carpenter” indicated ordinary manual labor, with no prestige at all, which sharpens the crowd’s surprise at hearing Him teach with such authority.
  4. Mark 6:4This saying about a prophet without honor in his own country explains the paradox: the more someone is known from childhood, the harder it becomes to accept that this person has something extraordinary to offer.
  5. Mark 6:5This is a direct, no-frills statement: the lack of faith there limited what happened, leaving only a few isolated healings instead of the kind of movement seen in other towns.
  6. Mark 6:6This time it is Jesus who marvels, only at people’s unbelief — a reversal of the usual pattern in the Gospel, where it’s normally the crowd that marvels at Him.
  7. Mark 6:7Sending them out in pairs followed a practical, and also legal, custom of the time: two witnesses were needed to give reliable testimony of anything that happened along the way.
  8. Mark 6:8A traveling preacher would normally carry provisions, money, and extra clothing for the journey; Jesus commands the opposite, so that the disciples would depend on the hospitality of whoever received them along the way. It was a test of trust both for the preachers and for the towns they visited.
  9. Mark 6:9The instruction not to take two coats reinforces the same spirit of traveling light found in the rest of the list: no backup or extra comfort, just the essentials.
  10. Mark 6:10Staying at the same house until leaving town kept the disciples from switching hosts in search of better accommodations, which would have given the wrong impression about the purpose of their visit.
  11. Mark 6:11Jews used to shake the dust of non-Jewish territory off their feet when returning home, as if refusing to carry anything of that place with them. Using this gesture against a Jewish town was a harsh way of saying that visit had been treated as if it were foreign soil, and so it would be treated the same way in return.
  12. Mark 6:12The summary of their preaching is direct: calling people to change their lives, the same message Jesus had announced since the start of chapter 1.
  13. Mark 6:13Anointing with oil was a common healing practice at the time, used both by folk healers and later remembered elsewhere in the New Testament as part of caring for the sick.
  14. Mark 6:14Herod Antipas was popularly called king, though his official Roman title was tetrarch, a lower-ranking ruler. The theory that John had risen from the dead shows how much that possibility troubled him.
  15. Mark 6:15Other theories were also circulating: Elijah, expected to return before the Messiah, or some ancient prophet come back — a sign that no one quite knew who Jesus was, but everyone sensed something big was happening.
  16. Mark 6:16Herod dismisses the other theories and returns to his own suspicion, almost a confession of guilt: he himself had John killed, and now he fears a kind of comeback.
  17. Mark 6:17Philip, Herod’s brother, was still alive when Herodias left him to marry Herod — a scandal both because he was Herod’s brother and because it involved divorce and remarriage within the royal family itself.
  18. Mark 6:18John publicly criticized this marriage, the kind of direct accusation against a ruler that rarely came cheap for whoever made it.
  19. Mark 6:19Herodias holds a grudge and wants John killed, but runs into some obstacle — the text suggests she didn’t have the power to do it alone, and needed a specific opportunity.
  20. Mark 6:20Herod lives with an inner conflict: he recognizes John as a just man and even enjoys listening to him, yet keeps him imprisoned, an unstable balance between respect and political fear.
  21. Mark 6:21A birthday banquet gathering nobles, military officers, and leaders of Galilee was a scene of status and public display — exactly the kind of audience in front of which a king would hate to go back on his word.
  22. Mark 6:22Herod Antipas had married Herodias, who was at once his niece and his own brother’s ex-wife — a marriage John the Baptist publicly criticized, which cost him his imprisonment. At the birthday feast, Herodias’s daughter dances and pleases the guests so much that Herod promises her anything in front of everyone, a typical exaggeration for this kind of royal celebration.
  23. Mark 6:23Promising up to half of his own kingdom is a figure of speech, the kind of grand, thoughtless promise made in the excitement of a party, with no real calculation of what was actually being offered.
  24. Mark 6:24The daughter’s question to her mother reveals that the answer had already been set in Herodias’s mind for some time — she uses the opening created by her own daughter’s dance to get what she hadn’t been able to get before.
  25. Mark 6:25The mother seizes on the king’s over-the-top promise to demand John’s head on a platter, a shocking request even by the standards of the time. It shows the depth of the grudge Herodias held against the prophet who had publicly criticized her.
  26. Mark 6:26Herod is genuinely saddened by the request, but chooses to keep a rash oath rather than publicly admit, in front of all his important guests, that he had promised too much.
  27. Mark 6:27The order goes out immediately and the act is carried out right there in the prison, without ceremony — the same fast pace found in other scenes of Mark, here used for a tragedy instead of a miracle.
  28. Mark 6:28The head passes from hand to hand like any object, from the executioner to the girl and from her to her mother — the final image underscores how much Herodias treated it as a conquered trophy.
  29. Mark 6:29John’s disciples, unlike the scene before, give him a dignified burial, tending to his body with respect after everything that happened.
  30. Mark 6:30“Apostles,” meaning those sent out, is the term used here as they return to report to Jesus on the mission they had carried out, picking back up the story that had been on pause since the start of the chapter.
  31. Mark 6:31The constant rush, with no time even to eat, is the direct reason for the invitation to rest — it’s not a whim, but a response to real, accumulated exhaustion.
  32. Mark 6:32Setting out by boat for a deserted place was an attempt to find privacy, something increasingly rare for the group at this point in the Gospel.
  33. Mark 6:33The crowd manages to arrive on foot before the boat, probably cutting across land while the boat went around by water — a sign of how badly they wanted to reach Jesus, even right after His attempt at rest.
  34. Mark 6:34“Sheep not having a shepherd” is an image used several times in the Old Testament to describe a people with no real leadership; Jesus responds to this crowd with compassion, not irritation at having His rest interrupted.
  35. Mark 6:35The disciples notice two practical problems at once: the place was remote and the day was already far along, with no facilities nearby to feed so many people.
  36. Mark 6:36The disciples’ solution is the most obvious one: send the crowd away to fend for themselves, buying food in the nearby villages before it got fully dark.
  37. Mark 6:37A penny, or denarius, was a full day’s wage for an ordinary day laborer. Two hundred denarii represented nearly a year’s pay — the disciples’ answer shows just how absurd the problem of feeding that crowd was without counting on a miracle.
  38. Mark 6:38Jesus’s practical question — how much do you have — leads to the discovery of a very small supply for the size of the crowd: five loaves and two fish, what the disciples already had on hand.
  39. Mark 6:39Organizing the crowd to sit down in groups, instead of leaving it scattered, made both distributing the food and counting how many people were there easier.
  40. Mark 6:40Sitting in rows of a hundred and of fifty recalls the way the people of Israel organized their camps in the wilderness, an almost military order within a meal scene.
  41. Mark 6:41The sequence of looking up, blessing, and breaking the bread follows the common form of a Jewish blessing before a meal — the same pattern of gestures that reappears later at the last supper.
  42. Mark 6:42“Were filled” is the key phrase: no one was left hungry, even though the starting supply was clearly not enough for so many people.
  43. Mark 6:43Twelve baskets full of leftovers, a number that echoes the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve disciples, show abundance beyond what was needed, not merely enough to avoid running short.
  44. Mark 6:44The text specifically counts men, about five thousand, without including women and children — the total number of people fed was probably even higher.
  45. Mark 6:45Jesus sends the disciples ahead by boat while He Himself takes care of dismissing the crowd, a task He preferred to handle alone.
  46. Mark 6:46Only after handling all the logistics of the crowd does Jesus finally get the moment alone to pray that He had been seeking since the start of the chapter.
  47. Mark 6:47The physical separation — the disciples out in the middle of the sea, Jesus alone on land — sets the stage for the episode of walking on water that comes next.
  48. Mark 6:48The fourth watch of the night fell between three and six in the morning, the latest stretch of the night — the disciples had already been rowing for hours against the wind when Jesus approaches.
  49. Mark 6:49Seeing someone walking on water was so far outside the ordinary that the first explanation to cross the disciples’ minds is the most frightening one: a ghost, not a real person.
  50. Mark 6:50“It is I” is the same simple phrase of identification anyone might use to announce themselves in the dark, but here it carries extra weight, coming right after a moment of shared terror.
  51. Mark 6:51The wind dying down as soon as Jesus climbs into the boat echoes the earlier storm scene, with the same kind of astonishment taking hold of the disciples.
  52. Mark 6:52Mark explains their astonishment with a harsh observation: they still had not truly understood the miracle of the loaves, a comment that sounds almost like criticism of the group’s lack of spiritual perception.
  53. Mark 6:53Gennesaret was a fertile region on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum, where the boat finally lands after the rough crossing.
  54. Mark 6:54As soon as they land, people recognize Jesus instantly — a sign of how far His fame had already spread throughout that whole area.
  55. Mark 6:55The news runs quickly through the whole region, with people carrying the sick on mats to wherever they heard Jesus was.
  56. Mark 6:56Touching just the edge of His garment directly recalls the earlier scene with the woman with the flow of blood, but now it becomes a widespread pattern: everyone who touched Him was healed, not an isolated case.

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