Expected One. After three days 4,000 men are there, and it's likely that well over 10,000 people in all have gathered. Imagine the joy celebrated in the healings, the thinking and talking about the teachings they heard. Is it any wonder that, "they praised the God of Israel"? Imagine a group of people so hungry for God's blessing that they ignored their physical hunger for 3 days.It's intriguing to think about the possibility that the 4,000, who were fed included Gentiles. According to Mark's account, it's likely that Jesus was in an area of mixed Jews and Gentiles. He was returning from an encounter with a Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon, who was absolutely a Gentile. During that encounter, the woman demonstrates her faith, by asking only for the crumbs from the family table. That is, even though Jesus has come on a mission to the children of Israel who are the family, she, a Gentile, was willing to take whatever was left. Some interpret this exchange as Jesus' way of revealing and encouraging the faith of this woman, before performing the healing she asked for.
But it's possible that her entreaties changed something in Jesus' understanding of His mission, and that when the 4,000 show up, both Jews and Gentiles, His compassion is more quickly engaged. We can't know for sure, except that we always know He did the will of God. But one difference between the two feedings, is that in the case of the 5,000 it's the disciples who come to Jesus with the problem of feeding them, and in the case of the 4,000 it's Jesus who initiates the feeding out of compassion.
Something else we do know is that even if there are no Gentiles involved in the actual feeding of the 4,000, the sequence of incidents and where they take place as described in Matthew, hint of an enlarged mission that will ultimately reach the Gentiles, even if Jesus' part of delivering the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven was largely restricted to the children of Israel.
And so... we were fed.
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