<p>8:8 <i>And they ate and were filled- </i>The Lord has just said to the Gentile woman that the Jews must first be &ldquo;filled&rdquo; (s.w. Mk. 7:27) before the Gentile dogs are fed. The feeding of the 4000 comes soon after the Lord&rsquo;s encounter with that woman. It seems the point is that the Lord judged that the time had now come to fill the Gentiles. For this was largely a Gentile crowd (see on :3).&nbsp;</p><p><i>And they gathered seven baskets of broken pieces that remained over</i>- According to Mk. 8:19-21, one of the reasons behind the Lord telling them to do this was simply to make them more deeply aware of the huge amount of bread which the Lord had created- to the point that they should realize that things like bread, and indeed all physical externalities, were just ultimately insignificant to the Lord.</p><p>Literally, &lsquo;the breakages&rsquo;. The word is only ever used in the Gospels about the broken pieces of bread from the feeding miracles. The related verb&nbsp;<i>klao</i>, to break, is used only of the &lsquo;breaking of bread&rsquo; in the feeding miracles, and every other occurrence in the New Testament concerns the breaking of bread service in memory of Jesus (Mt. 26:26; Mk. 14:22; Lk. 22:19; 24:30; Acts 2:46; 20:7,11; 27:35; 1 Cor. 10:16; 11:24). Clearly the breaking of bread in the miracles is intended to be seen as programmatic for the later &lsquo;breaking of bread&rsquo; services. In this connection it becomes highly significant that there were Gentiles participating, along with women and children, and there was no &lsquo;test of fellowship&rsquo; operated. The simple fact people wanted to be present around Jesus was enough.&nbsp;</p><p>&quot;What was left over&quot; is Gk. &lsquo;super-abounded&rsquo;. This is noted in all five records of the feeding miracles. The poor notice wastage of food, and this was the wastage of food&nbsp;<i>extraordinaire</i>. But such super generosity is the hallmark of God&rsquo;s activity, as it should be a feature of our spirit too. The prodigal recalled how there was always &lsquo;an abundance of loaves&rsquo; with the Father (Gk. &ldquo;bread to the full&rdquo;, AV; Lk. 15:16).&nbsp;</p><p>The incident is surely placed next to that of the Gentile woman eating the &lsquo;crumbs&rsquo; in order to show the eagerness of the Gentiles for the bread of Israel. The amazing example of going three days without food in order to receive spiritual food demonstrated beyond doubt the legitimacy of Gentile interest in the Messianic bread / manna of the Kingdom.&nbsp;</p>