Jesus dismisses the crowd, but not before there is a movement among them to declare him Israel’s king. These are not Biblically ignorant men. They recognize that this miracle is a mark of the coming Messiah, who is to be the prophet foretold by Moses who would be greater than Moses had been.

Just as Moses provided mana (though God did) Jesus has duplicated the miracle here, though it was bread rather than mana. Jesus’s response was that he needed a time of private prayer.

Wonder what that prayer time involved? Perhaps, it was a time to reestablish the Father’s timetable for events. If so, the crowds adoring demands that he be king matched one of Satan’s temptations.