Exegesis:

dote autois humeis phagein ‘you give them (something) to eat,’ cf. on 8.55. humeis is emphatic: you give them to eat instead of letting them take care of themselves.

ouk eisin hēmin pleion ē artoi pente kai ichthues duo ‘we have no more than, or, only, five loaves and two fish.’

ei mēti poreuthentes hēmeis agorasōmen eis panta ton laon touton brōmata ‘unless we ourselves go and buy food for all this crowd.’ Between this clause and the preceding one the train of thought is like this: so we are unable to feed them, unless … hēmeis is emphatic and takes up the emphatic humeis spoken by Jesus.

agorazō ‘to buy,’ ‘to purchase,’ in Luke only in a literal sense.

Translation:

You give them something to eat, or, “give them … to eat yourselves” (New English Bible), ‘(it is) you that should give…’ (Balinese).

We have. The pronoun is best taken to be exclusive (as e.g. in Huautla Mazatec, and most Indonesian versions), unless this would suggest an intention to exclude Jesus from the food.

Loaves, see on 4.3; Tboli uses here, ‘five wrappings of cooked rice,’ the normal provisions on a journey.

Fish, cf. on 5.6; here the reference is to ‘cured (e.g. dried, or, salted) fish.’

Unless we are to go …, or, ‘except only that (or, only if) we go’ (Kele, Ekari), may have to be adjusted to bring out the right meaning, e.g. .’.. unless you want us (emphatic) to go…’ (Shona 1966), ‘or maybe we should go’ (East Nyanja), ‘it would be necessary for us to go’ (Tzeltal); or as a question, ‘or shall we go?’ (Zarma), ‘you don’t want us to go…, don’t you?’ (cf. Bahasa Indonesia RC); or again, filling out the elliptical utterance, ‘only if we go…, there would be sufficient,’ ‘we cannot give them enough, except if we go….’ Marathi reaches the same end by transposing this and the preceding clause, cf. ‘if we don’t buy and bring bread, then we have nothing besides five loaves and two fish.’ Here we is best taken exclusive, otherwise the disciples would be implying that Jesus was to join them on their errand.

Food, see on 3.11.

All these people, i.e. “this whole crowd” (Good News Translation), and cf. on 3.21.

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.