These questions are not asking whether or not the disciples really do remember, but they are rhetorical questions which are meant to rebuke the disciples for not perceiving or remembering. For this reason it may be advisable to restructure the questions of these verses as statements; for example, “You still don’t understand! You have already forgotten about the time that I fed five thousand men with five loaves of bread. After that meal you took up enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets. You have even forgotten about the four thousand men that I fed with seven loaves. After that meal you took up enough leftovers to fill seven baskets.”

Baskets in verse 9 is the same word used in the account of the feeding of the five thousand (14.20), while baskets in verse 10 is the same word used in the account of the feeding of the four thousand (15.37).

The five loaves of the five thousand refers specifically to the five loaves he used to feed the five thousand men, as has been made explicit in the example above. “How I fed five thousand men with five loaves” is also possible. The seven loaves of the four thousand can be treated in a similar fashion.

In the above example, too, we rendered how many baskets you gathered with the phrase “leftovers to fill twelve (or, seven) baskets.” Another possibility is “filled up twelve (or, seven) baskets with the bread left over.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .