The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone.
Jesus had dismissed the crowd with their aspirations of making Him King over Israel and most of the five thousand had left to either return to their homes or to continue their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast, but there were still some in the area hoping to find Jesus again. The crowd must have been perplexed and greatly disappointed. They had seen the great miracle of the feeding of the five thousand and had wanted to make Jesus King, which was the rightful title for the Messiah, but He had refused. In their lack of understanding of His views of kingship, they must have concluded that He rejected the offer from a lack of confidence or fear. Edersheim points out that “enthusiasm of this kind, once repressed, could never be kindled again.” (II, p.24) From here on, a great portion of His followers would either misunderstand, doubt, or totally reject Him.
Those few who are left still don’t understand the sign, but they want to find Jesus to obtain more “signs” from Him. They noted that there had only been one boat on the shore the previous day and the disciples had gotten in it and left without Jesus so He must either still be in the area or be traveling by foot to meet them.