We are not told the answer to question - it could have been either:
- The food was multiplied as per the miracles of loaves and fish in the NT
- The small servings were miraculously enough for the large group of people.
Either way, they left satisfied. Benson makes this observation:
2 Kings 4:43. What! should I set this before a hundred men? — Just as
the apostles said to the Lord Jesus, when he intended to feed a far
greater number with less food. He said again, Give unto the people,
&c. — Do as I order you, and make no objections. For thus saith the
Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof — As the multitude left
of the loaves and fishes which Christ caused to be set before them.
The similitude between several of the miracles of Elijah and Elisha,
and those of the Lord Jesus, is very striking, and may be considered
as a proof that they all acted by the power of one and the same
Spirit. The miracles of the Son of God, however, were both far more in
number, and far greater, than those which were performed by these his
servants.
Barnes has further insights:
This miracle was a faint foreshadowing of our Lord's far more
marvelous feeding of thousands with even scantier materials. The
resemblance is not only in the broad fact, but in various minute
particulars, such as the distribution through the hands of others; the
material, bread; the surprised question of the servant; and the
evidence of superfluity in the fragments that were left (see the
marginal references). As Elijah was a type of the Baptist, so Elisha
was in many respects a type of our Blessed Lord. In his peaceful,
non-ascetic life, in his mild and gentle character, in his constant
circuits, in his many miracles of mercy, in the healing virtue which
abode in his bodily frame 2 Kings 13:21, he resembled, more than any
other prophet, the Messiah, of whom all prophets were more or less
shadows and figures.
