Surely Jesus must have known this would send them spinning. They reply, are we to go away and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give it to them to eat?” The NIV has eight months of a man's wages. Jesus ignores this and tells them to go and see how many loaves they have. I don't know how hard they looked- was it a 'look to keep Jesus happy look'? Or was the group of 5000 men- and presumably at least a couple of thousand women, all out there with no food- due to the rushed nature of their arrival? They find five – and two fish, then- kai epataxan autois anaklinai pantas sumposia sumposia epi tw chlwpw chortw. kai anepesan prasiai prasiai kata hekaton kai kata pentekonta.
and he commanded them all to recline* in parties upon the green grass. And they lay down* /took their place like orderly plots of flower or vegetable beds, in groups of hundreds and fifties.
*both these words are used for taking your place at a meal- reclining for a meal.
That may be an over- translation- certainly the NIV or Phillips or NRSV don't include this part of the description. France (p17) has looking like rows of vegetables.
(p267) A sumposion is a group of people eating or (more commonly) drinking together, and suggests a relaxed, even convivial atmosphere; sumposia sumposia is distributive, 'in parties'. prasiai is literally a garden plot or flower bed and is not elsewhere used to describe people, so that prasiai prasiai (similarly distributive, 'in rows') offers a remarkably visual impression of the scene, with men lined up in groups like plots of vegetables on the green grass.
He goes on and mentions that in a Jewish context meals were generally taken seated.
All that definitely adds to a reading of the passage in English. Once again I think we have an example of an event vividly etched into Peter's memory (not surprisingly).
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