Bread Given, a King Refused, Disciples Divided

Tiberias was the new city Herod Antipas built on the western shore around AD 20 and named for the emperor, and the lake came to be called after it. Only the Book of John uses that name for the lake, here and in 21:1, giving both names perhaps for readers who knew only the later one.

Both verbs are imperfect: the crowd kept following because it kept watching. The only Galilean healing the book has recorded so far is the nobleman’s son, so “his miracles” implies far more than was written down, as 20:30 openly admits.

Sitting was the teacher’s posture. Going up a mountain in a chapter full of manna and Moses has made some readers think of Sinai, but that is an inference; the hills rise steeply from the eastern shore and the verse may mean no more than that.

The Book of John names three Passovers (2:13, here, and 11:55), which is where the common reckoning of a ministry of more than two years comes from. This one sets the chapter in the season of the exodus, when Israel remembered the bread from heaven.

“Lifted up his eyes” is the phrase of 4:35, looking at a harvest of people. In the other Gospels the disciples raise the problem of food; here Jesus raises it. Philip came from Bethsaida (1:44), and Luke 9:10 places the feeding near that town, so the local man is asked where to shop.

“Prove” is peirazo, to test, the verb used of God testing Abraham in the Greek of Genesis 22:1. The aside protects Jesus’ knowledge, as the book does in 2:24–25: the question was never a request for advice.

A penny, the denarius, was a labourer’s wage for a day (Matthew 20:2), so two hundred of them was most of a year’s earnings. Philip’s figure is not what it would take to fill them, only what would give each a mouthful.

Every time Andrew appears in the Book of John he is bringing someone to Jesus: his brother (1:41), this boy, and the Greeks (12:22). He is identified again by his more famous brother, even though he met Jesus first.

“Lad” is paidarion, a double diminutive, a young boy or a serving lad. Only John says barley, the cheaper grain eaten by the poor, and barley was ripening at Passover. “Fishes” is opsarion, small dried or pickled fish eaten as relish with bread, the word used again at the charcoal fire in 21:9.

Grass is green in Galilee in spring, which suits the Passover of verse 4, and Mark 6:39 also mentions it. The verb for sitting is to recline, as at a meal. The count is of men, andres, so women and children were not numbered.

“Given thanks” is eucharisteo, the verb from which the church later named the Lord’s Supper. The oldest manuscripts lack the words “to the disciples, and the disciples”; in them Jesus himself hands out the bread, and the fuller wording seems to have come in from Matthew 14:19.

Manna gathered beyond the day’s need bred worms and stank (Exodus 16:19–20). This surplus is gathered on purpose and kept. “Be lost” is apollumi, the verb Jesus will use of those given to him: “I should lose nothing” (verse 39).

The baskets are kophinoi, stout wicker carrying baskets; the Roman poet Juvenal mocked Jews for always travelling with one. Twelve matches the number of the disciples and of Israel’s tribes. The count is of barley fragments alone; the fish have dropped out of the reckoning.

“That prophet” is the one the priests asked John the Baptist about in 1:21, “Art thou that prophet?”, the prophet like Moses. The reasoning runs from bread to Moses: Moses fed Israel in the wilderness, so a man who feeds a crowd in a lonely place must be his promised successor.

“Take by force” is harpazo, to snatch or seize, the verb of the wolf that “catcheth” the sheep (10:12) and of the hand no one can “pluck” them from (10:28). Only John gives this reason for the withdrawal, which explains why Mark 6:45 says Jesus sent the disciples off in a hurry.

Evening in Greek reckoning covered the late afternoon into dusk. The disciples go down from the hillside of verse 3 to the shore, still without Jesus, who is alone on the mountain above them.

The best manuscripts read that Jesus had “not yet” come to them, which suggests they expected him to join them somehow. The Book of John opened with light shining in darkness (1:5), and the disciples now set out in the dark without him.

The easterly winds that come down off the Golan heights can strike the lake suddenly, and a boat heading west to Capernaum would be rowing straight into them. The Greek imperfect describes a sea being steadily roused, not a single gust.

A furlong, the stadion, was about 607 feet, so they had rowed three miles or a little more, near the middle of a lake about seven miles wide. The same Greek phrase can mean “by the sea”, as in 21:1, and a few modern readers argued he was on the shore, but their fear tells against it.

“It is I” is ego eimi, the “I am” of 4:26, the form in which God names himself in the Greek of Isaiah 43:10. Job 9:8 praises God, “which alone... treadeth upon the waves of the sea”. These four English words are all Jesus says in the scene.

“Willingly received” is literally “they were willing to take him”, and the Greek leaves open whether he ever got in before the boat touched land. Psalm 107:29–30 describes God stilling a storm and bringing sailors “unto their desired haven”, and the landing here reads like that line.

The Greek sentence here is among the most tangled in the book; it breaks off, runs through a parenthesis, and resumes in verse 24. The crowd had spent the night on the eastern shore and reasoned from the boats: one small boat, the disciples gone in it, and Jesus not with them.

Herod built Tiberias partly over a cemetery, Josephus says, and many observant Jews at first would not live there. The boats may have been blown across by the wind of verse 18, though that is a guess. The meal is remembered by the thanksgiving, not by the multiplying, and Jesus is called “the Lord” again.

Only as many as the Tiberias boats could carry could make the crossing, a fraction of five thousand. “Seeking” picks up the first words Jesus speaks in the Book of John, “What seek ye?” (1:38), and the next verses will ask what this crowd is seeking.

Yesterday they wanted to make him king; today they call him Rabbi. The question is about timing, “when”, and the perfect tense means “when did you get here”, a question that leaves the more interesting “how” unasked.

“Filled” here is chortazo, a verb first used of feeding animals with fodder, from chortos, grass, the “much grass” of verse 10. The word is blunt: they were fed full, like cattle at pasture. Seeing the signs would have meant reading them; eating them did not.

In the ancient world a seal marked ownership and guaranteed contents, and bakers stamped their loaves; carbonised loaves from Pompeii still bear the stamp. “Sealed” here means authenticated by God, and many readers connect it with the Spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism (1:32–33).

They pick up his verb: he said “labour”, and they ask how to “work the works”, plural, as though a list of deeds could be supplied. The question is sincere and practical, and it assumes that the answer will be something to do.

The plural “works” becomes a singular: “the work of God” is one thing, and the one thing is believing. Calling faith a work is a deliberate paradox. The phrase “whom he hath sent” keeps Jesus’ identity inside the answer.

They turn his word back on him: “What dost thou work?” A day after eating bread in the wilderness they ask for a sign. The demand to “see, and believe thee” uses the verb believe with a simple dative, credit his words, rather than the fuller “believe on him” of verse 29.

The quotation is closest to Psalm 78:24, “the corn of heaven”, with Exodus 16:4 and Nehemiah 9:15 behind it. A later rabbinic saying (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:9) held that as the first redeemer brought down manna, so would the last. The crowd is setting a messianic test.

The answer reads the quoted text closely, correcting its subject and the tense of its verb, the way synagogue teachers expounded a verse. Peder Borgen showed that verses 31 to 58 follow the pattern of such a homily, taking the words of the text one by one.

“Bread” is masculine in Greek, so “he which cometh down” can equally mean “that which cometh down”. The King James chooses “he”, but the ambiguity lets the bread and the person slide into one before Jesus says so in verse 35. “Cometh down” appears seven times in this chapter.

The manna came daily for forty years and stopped the day after Israel ate the grain of Canaan (Joshua 5:12). “Evermore” is pantote, always: they are asking for a manna that never stops. “Lord” is kurie, still at the level of “Sir”.

This is the first of the seven “I am” sayings in the book with something after them: bread, light, door, shepherd, resurrection, way, vine. In Ecclesiasticus 24:21 Wisdom says “they that eat me shall yet be hungry”; Jesus claims the opposite, that the one who comes to him shall never hunger.

No earlier saying in the chapter matches these words exactly, unless verse 26 is meant, and some suggest Jesus refers to something not recorded. The crowd has seen him with their own eyes and eaten his bread, and that seeing is exactly what has not been enough.

The first half is neuter and collective, “all that”, the whole company given as one gift; the second half is singular and personal, “him that cometh”. “In no wise cast out” is emphatic; the same verb is used of the man born blind whom the Pharisees “cast out” in 9:34.

This is the phrase that provokes the murmuring in verse 41: “I came down from heaven.” The Greek perfect means he has come down and remains the one who came. The words about not doing his own will repeat the claim of 5:30 almost exactly.

“Lose nothing” picks up the fragments of verse 12, “that nothing be lost”, with the same verb. “The last day” is a phrase only the Book of John uses in the New Testament, four times in this chapter and again at the grave of Lazarus (11:24) and in 12:48.

The neuter “it” of verse 39 becomes “him”, a person, and the “I” is emphatic in Greek: I myself will raise him. “Seeth” is theoreo, to behold with attention, a stronger verb than the seeing of verse 36 that failed to become faith.

“Murmured” is gongyzo, the verb the Greek Old Testament uses for Israel grumbling against Moses over food in the wilderness (Exodus 16:2, 7–8). They murmur about the bread from heaven exactly as their fathers did. These are Galileans in Capernaum, yet the book still calls them “the Jews”.

Philip had introduced Jesus as “the son of Joseph” in 1:45. The Book of John never names Jesus’ mother; she is always “the mother of Jesus”. Capernaum lies about twenty miles from Nazareth, close enough for his family to be known.

He answers the grumbling and not their question about his parents, which he leaves untouched. “Among yourselves” is literally “with one another”: the murmuring was passed round the crowd, not addressed to him.

“Draw” is helko, the verb for hauling a laden net ashore (21:6, 11) and for dragging a man to court (Acts 16:19). The Greek of Jeremiah 31:3 uses it for God: “with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” In 12:32 Jesus uses it of himself: “I will draw all men unto me.”

“In the prophets” names the section of Scripture, not a single book. The words are from Isaiah 54:13, “all thy children shall be taught of the LORD”, and Jeremiah 31:34 has the same hope: no one will need to teach his neighbour. Hearing and learning come before coming.

The verse guards against misreading verse 45: taught by God does not mean having seen God. It picks up 1:18, “No man hath seen God at any time”. “Of God” is para, from beside God, where the one who has seen him has been.

Several of the oldest manuscripts lack “on me”, leaving the bare statement “He that believeth hath everlasting life”. “Hath” is present tense: the life is possessed now, not only promised.

The claim of verse 35 is repeated to open the second half of the argument, as a preacher restates his text. “Bread of life” means bread that gives life, not bread that is merely alive, in contrast with the manna of the next verse.

The crowd said “our fathers” in verse 31; Jesus says “your fathers”. The wilderness generation ate manna for forty years and still died in the desert, as Numbers 14:29–35 decreed. “Are dead” is simply “died” in Greek.

“Eat thereof, and not die” reverses Genesis 2:17, where the King James also has “eatest thereof” with death as the result. In Eden eating brought death; this bread is offered so that eating brings life. Whether the echo is intended is an inference, but the wording is close.

“For” is huper, on behalf of, the preposition the Book of John uses for dying for others: the good shepherd gives his life “for the sheep” (10:11), and Caiaphas says one man should die “for the people” (11:50). “Flesh” is sarx, the word of 1:14.

“Strove” is emachonto, they fought, a sharp step up from the murmuring of verse 41. The crowd is now divided among itself. “This man” in Greek carries an edge, as when one says “this fellow”.

Drinking blood was forbidden from Noah onward (Genesis 9:4), and Leviticus 17:10–14 gives the reason: “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” That law makes the saying shocking, and it also supplies the logic: blood is life, and without it “ye have no life”.

The verb for eating changes here to trogo, a blunt word first used of animals munching, and it continues to verse 58. The Book of John uses it once more, in 13:18: “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.”

“Indeed” translates alethes, true or real, the manuscript reading most editors prefer. It recalls “the true bread” of verse 32: the manna was real food for the body, and this is food that deserves the name.

“Dwelleth” is meno, abide. This is the first time the book speaks of mutual dwelling, “in me, and I in him”, the phrase that will be unfolded in the vine of 15:4–5, “Abide in me, and I in you.”

“The living Father” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The object changes from “my flesh” to simply “me”: he that eateth me. “By” is dia, because of: the Son lives because of the Father, and the eater because of the Son.

The last sentence returns to the words of verse 31, bread from heaven, the fathers, manna, and closes the circle the argument opened. It ends on the promise without an image: “shall live for ever”.

The white limestone synagogue that visitors see in Capernaum was built in the fourth or fifth century, but it stands on black basalt foundations that may belong to the first-century building. The Greek says “in synagogue”, without the article, meaning at a synagogue gathering.

“Hard” is skleros, harsh or offensive, not difficult to understand. They understood well enough. “Who can hear it?” means who can listen to it and accept it. The objection now comes from disciples, not from the crowd.

“Knew in himself” means without being told. The verb for “offend” is skandalizo, from the trigger stick of a trap. In the Book of John it appears only here and in 16:1, where the farewell words are spoken “that ye should not be offended.”

The Greek sentence breaks off with no second half, and the King James “What and if” keeps the gap. The ascent recalls 3:13, “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down”, and the ladder of angels ascending and descending in 1:51.

“Words” is rhemata, the particular things just said, and Peter picks up the same noun in verse 68: “thou hast the words of eternal life.” The sentence recalls 3:6, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

“From the beginning” uses arche, the first noun of the book (1:1). This is the first mention of betrayal in the Book of John. The verb is paradidomi, to hand over, used later of Pilate handing Jesus over to be crucified (19:16).

Verse 44 said the Father must draw; here it is “given”, a gift rather than a pull. Jesus cites his own earlier saying as the explanation of what is happening before their eyes as disciples murmur and turn away.

“From that time” can also be read “for this reason”. “Went back” is literally “went away to the things behind”, back to what they had left. The same phrase is used in 18:6 of the arresting band who “went backward, and fell to the ground”.

This is the first time the Twelve are named in the Book of John, which never records their calling as a group. The question in Greek expects the answer no, “You do not want to go too, do you?”, and leaves it to them to say so.

These are Peter’s first recorded words in the book. He answers a question with a question and then a statement. “Words of eternal life” has no article in Greek: not a creed, but words that carry life, the noun Jesus used in verse 63.

The King James “that Christ, the Son of the living God” follows later manuscripts; the oldest read “the Holy One of God”, the title the unclean spirit uses in Mark 1:24. Both verbs are perfect tense: we have believed, and have come to know.

“Devil” is diabolos, slanderer or accuser, with no article: one of you is a devil. In the other Gospels, after Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus calls Peter “Satan” (Mark 8:33); in the Book of John the label falls on someone else among the same twelve.

Only the Book of John names Judas’s father as Simon, and some manuscripts call the father “Simon Iscariot”, which makes the surname a family name. It is often explained as “man of Kerioth”, a town in Judah (Joshua 15:25), which would make Judas a Judean among Galileans, though that is an inference.