The basket in these Gospel witnesses holds the pieces left after Jesus feeds the large crowd. Its role is concrete: people eat, the disciples gather what remains, and the collected portions make the abundance visible.
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Reader summary
Full entry for κόφινος (G2894) · Open the biblical lexicon
The basket in these Gospel witnesses holds the pieces left after Jesus feeds the large crowd. Its role is concrete: people eat, the disciples gather what remains, and the collected portions make the abundance visible.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include basketfuls (5), baskets (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 14:20. Its strongest book concentrations include Mark (2), Matthew (2), John (1), Luke (1).
The basket in these Gospel witnesses holds the pieces left after Jesus feeds the large crowd. Its role is concrete: people eat, the disciples gather what remains, and the collected portions make the abundance visible. John also records Jesus' instruction that the leftovers be gathered so nothing is wasted. Mark later has Jesus ask the disciples how many baskets they collected, using their remembered experience to challenge their continuing failure to understand.
The basket is therefore part of both the feeding account and a later teaching question. It is not a charm for securing abundance or a separate explanation of the miracle. Readers should attend to the hungry crowd, Jesus' provision, the gathering work, and the disciples' recollection before assigning significance to the container's name or number.
The feeding accounts describe gathered food remaining after the crowd is satisfied. Jesus later asks the disciples to remember the collected baskets, making the earlier event part of His challenge to their understanding.
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
The crowd is satisfied and twelve baskets of broken pieces remain after Jesus distributes the loaves and fish through the disciples.
So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
The baskets contain pieces from the five barley loaves after everyone has eaten, following Jesus' instruction to gather leftovers so nothing is wasted.
When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you collect?” “Twelve,” they answered.
Jesus asks the disciples to recall the twelve baskets from feeding the five thousand while challenging their failure to understand and remember.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Small wicker basket for carrying food, distinct from the larger σφυρίς used for provisions.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a large basket
Read versea large basket
Read versea large basket
Read versea large basket
Read versea large basket
Read versea large basket
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
κόφινος is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The collected baskets are evidence within the narrated event, not the cause of the provision. Jesus has fed the crowd, people have eaten, and the disciples gather the remaining pieces. John's instruction about waste gives that collection an additional practical purpose. Mark then returns to the remembered baskets when Jesus questions disciples who still do not understand.
A teacher can trace the movement from received provision to attentive recollection without suggesting that an impressive tally substitutes for faith in Jesus. The real hunger of the crowd should also remain visible. The narrative is not merely a lesson about spiritual surplus. It describes food supplied to people, while the Gospel's wider testimony directs attention toward who Jesus is and how His disciples respond to Him.
Mark.8.19
The Greek lexical witness identifies a basket used in the selected feeding accounts. Another basket term appears in related passages; the present noun alone does not establish size, ethnic ownership, or a complete symbolic interpretation.
The wilderness provision in Exodus can be compared with the Gospel feeding accounts as Scripture directs attention to God's care for hungry people. The narratives retain their different circumstances. Neither a common food theme nor a container word establishes an identity between the gathered bread and every earlier provision event.