And his disciples being hungry. How truly admirable is the conduct of the apostles, who would not depart from the company of Jesus, though pressed by the greatest hunger and fatigue, not even to take a little refreshment for the body. (St. Chrysostom)

It is remarked by St. Jerome, that the Pharisees did not accuse the disciples of theft, but of a breach of the sabbath. St. Luke calls this sabbath, Sabbatum secundo primum, which is differently explained by interpreters. Ribeira, following St. Chrysostom and Theophilactus, thinks that every sabbath was so called, which followed immediately any feast. Maldonatus is of opinion that some particular sabbath is pointed out by this name, and conjectures that it was the sabbath of Pentecost, because it is the second of the great feasts, viz. the Passover, Pentecost, Scenopegia, or of the Tabernacles.

In the Greek, sabbath is in the plural, and means the days of the sabbath or rest, which were a part of the feast. The three great feasts lasted a whole week each. They were all three called prota, i.e. great, solemn feasts. The first was that of the Passover, with the seven days of unleavened bread, called protoproton, the first-first sabbath by excellence: the second was the great feast of Pentecost, deteroproton, the second-first sabbath, (which seems to have been the feast meant by the evangelist in this place, as at this season the corn was ripe in Palestine) and the third was the feast of tabernacles, tritoproton, the third-first great sabbath. Many, however, are of opinion, that by the second-first sabbath is meant the octave day of the feast, which was ordered to be equally solemnized with the first day of the feast. (Leviticus xxiii. 36, 39. and Numbers xxix. 35.)