<p>8:7 <i>And they had a few small fishes; and having blessed them, he commanded to set these also before them</i>- Mark&rsquo;s record speaks as if the fish were something of an afterthought (Mk. 8:7); the use of the diminutive word for&nbsp;<i>little</i>&nbsp;fish suggests they thought them hardly worth mentioning. The stress (in Mark) is that&nbsp;<i>they</i>&nbsp;had a few small fish. The situation is of course purposefully similar to that of the feeding of the 5000. They were really intended to learn from it. But they didn&rsquo;t. There were some differences, and one of them was that this time, their own small amount of food was used rather than that of the boy. The Lord was seeking to show that what little they personally had, fish they had personally caught but felt inadequate for the task, could and would be used by Him in order to meet the hunger of the Gentile world.&nbsp;</p>