Jesus knew their thought and said, “You of little faith, why do you reason in your heart that you have no bread? Do you still not understand and not remember? Is your heart so hardened?”
Christ’s questions here are a rebuke, but a rebuke given with love. He does not condemn the disciples as strangers, but corrects them as those who are with Him. The words “Do you still not understand?” show that they already had sufficient grounds to understand, because they had seen His works. The problem was not a lack of knowledge, but hardness of heart. The phrase “Is your heart so dulled?” is very deep: a person can be near to Christ outwardly and still keep within a slowness that does not allow him to believe fully. Hardness of heart does not always mean that a person is openly against God; it is often expressed as distrust, when a person knows God, yet in the moment of trial becomes afraid again and thinks in a merely human way. This verse calls us to self-examination: we too many times hear, see, and even acknowledge God’s works, yet in a new trial we again show unbelief. Christ desires not only hearing, but also softness of heart, so that the truth may take root within.