Where Do You Put 5,000 Men?

How on earth was a hillside big enough to feed 5,000 men lying empty? Didn’t some farmers squash crop get ruined, and he came storming out the next day pointing his finger at Jesus and screaming?

Apparently not, given John 6:10b - There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down.

There were three main crops in a crowded Galilee – olives, grapes and grain. 5,000 people can’t sit on a hill full of grapevines or olive trees, regardless of how much grass there is. The idea that nobody owned it is not one I'm buying, as per the below illustration.

Some people think this was a field owned by nobody, which would make it a tangled heap of green stuff gone wild, laden with bugs and impossible to sit in.

Many hillsides were terraced, meaning that the farmer had hacked away the middle of the hillside until he had multiple layers of flat dirt to plant barley, vegetables or anything else on. I’ve often thought it must have been a little tiresome to grind your feet into the dirt for hours while you listened to Jesus speak, particularly if you had little ones you’re afraid will stumble, and this would have provided nice seating arrangements in a field lying fallow.

However, fields only laid fallow every other year, so I doubt it would be labeled as having 'plenty of grass' in an off-year. So, if that assumption's correct - and it may not be - my best guess is a hillside full of sheep. Shepherds were hired by multiple families to graze and care for the few sheep and goats each might own, but the animals went home during off hours. Trampled grass presumably is edible to a hungry goat, and nobody’s property would have been damaged.

Maybe it used to be terraced farmland, so the seating was at least a little comfy. :)