Matthew 15:29-39

Not counting women and children…

Scripture offerings for today include Jesus’  feeding of the 4,000–not to be confused with the feeding of the 5,000.

Some of the takeaways from each are similar, for example, Jesus feeding stressed, burdened, forsaken people looking to catch a break.

We know these stories, right?

Well, I thought I did. Until, as a freshly minted priest in 2006, someone pointed out the “trick” in Matthew’s version of the feeding of the 4,000. 

A side note, Jesus affirms that there were, in fact, two mass feedings in the wilderness: The one for 5,000 occurred in Jewish territory; and the one for 4,000 occurring in Gentile territory.

The “trick” we see spelled out in the 4,000 miracle meals should also be assumed for the 5,000, as the data for estimating attendance was the same. For census and other official counts, they only counted the men. Not the women and children.

BUT that’s not how these crowd calculations were done. See it for yourself: 

“Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.”*

So, my math says, for an all-inclusive household total calculated at 5 to 7 people, there were more like 24,000 to 30,000 human beings whose hunger was addressed in the two meals.

Mary Patricia Trainor

*Megan McKenna, Not Counting Women and Children: Neglected Stories from the Bible (Orbis Books, 1994).