Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in that place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
As the Good Shepherd, Jesus made the “sheep” (Mark 6:34) sit down in green pastures (cf. Ps. 23:2). According to Mark 6:40, the people were seated in groups of 50 and 100. This made the crowd easy to count and the food easy to distribute.