John 6:14

6:1-14 John relates the miracle of feeding the multitude, for its reference to the following discourse. Observe the effect this miracle had upon the people. Even the common Jews expected the Messiah to come into the world, and to be a great Prophet. The Pharisees despised them as not knowing the law; but they knew most of Him who is the end of the law. Yet men may acknowledge Christ as that Prophet, and still turn a deaf ear to him.

When they had seen the miracle of Christ’s multiplying five loaves and two fishes, to the feeding of five thousand persons, besides women and children; a miracle of that nature, that never any such was wrought either by Moses or any prophet, and to the working of which a creating power was necessary; this brought them to a strong persuasion that this was the Messias; for he is signified by that phrase, that prophet that should come into the world, as appeareth from Luke 7:19 .

14 . Then those men ] Rather, The men therefore. the miracle that Jesus did ] Better, the sign that He did . The name Jesus has been inserted here, as elsewhere, because this once was the beginning of a lesson read in church. The same thing has been done in our own Prayer Book in the Gospels for Quinquagesima and the 3rd Sunday in Lent: in the Gospel for S. John’s Day the names of both Jesus and Peter have been inserted; and in those for the 5th S. in Lent and 2nd S. after Easter the words ‘Jesus said’ have been inserted. In all cases a desire for clearness has caused the insertion. Comp. John 8:21 . that prophet that should come ] Literally, the Prophet that cometh : the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:15 (see on John 1:21 ). But perhaps the Greek participle here only represents the Hebrew participle, which is properly present, but is often used where a future participle would be used in Latin or Greek. S. John alone tells us the effect of the miracle on those who witnessed it: comp. John 2:11 ; John 2:23 . These two verses (14, 15) supply “a decisive proof that the narrative in the fourth Gospel is not constructed out of that of the Synoptists, and we might almost add a decisive proof of the historical character of the Gospel itself … The Synoptists have nothing of this … Yet how exactly it corresponds with the current Messianic expectations! Our Lord had performed a miracle; and at once He is hailed as the Messiah. But it is as the Jewish, not the Christian Messiah.

The multitude would take Him by force and make Him king. At last they have found the leader who will lead them victoriously against the Romans and ‘restore the kingdom to Israel.’ And just because He refused to do this we are told a few verses lower down that many of His disciples ‘went back, and walked no more with Him,’ and for the same cause, a year later, they crucified Him. It is this contrast between the popular Messianic belief and the sublimated form of it, as maintained and represented by Christ, that is the clue to all the fluctuations and oscillations to which the belief in Him was subject. This is why He was confessed one day and denied the next … It is almost superfluous to point out how impossible it would have been for a writer wholly ab extra to throw himself into the midst of these hopes and feelings, and to reproduce them, not as if they were something new that he had learned, but as part of an atmosphere that he had himself once breathed. There is no stronger proof both of the genuineness and of the authenticity of the fourth Gospel than the way in which it reflects the current Messianic idea.” S. pp. 123, 124.

(14) Miracle. —Better, sign. (Comp. John 2:11 .) That Jesus did.—Better, that He did. The example is instructive, as showing how words were added at the beginning of a portion read in church. See, among other examples in the Book of Common Prayer, the Gospels for St. John the Evangelist’s Day (John 21:19), Quinquagesima (Luke 18:31), the Third Sunday in Lent (Luke 11:14), the Fifth Sunday in Lent (John 8:46), the Second Sunday after Easter (John 10:11). This is of a truth that prophet.—This verse is peculiar to St. John. The reception or rejection of Christ is always present to his thoughts. He remembers that the effect of the miracle on the minds of those men, was that they were convinced that this was the Prophet whom they expected, and for whom they had before taken John the Baptist (John 1:21).

John 6:14-15 . Ὁ προφήτης , κ . τ . λ .] the Prophet who (according to the promise in Deuteronomy 18:15 ) cometh into the world, i.e . the Messiah . ἁρπάζειν ] come and carry Him away by force ( Acts 8:39 ; 2 Corinthians 12:2 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:17 ), i.e . to Jerusalem, as the seat of the theocracy, whither they were journeying to the feast. πάλιν ] comp. John 6:3 . He had come down from the mountain on account of the feeding, John 6:11 . αὐτὸς μόνος ] as in John 12:24 . See Toup. ad Longin . p. 526; Weisk.; Heind. ad Charm , p. 62. The enthusiasm , of the people being of so sensuous a kind, does not contradict John 6:26 . The solitude which Jesus sought was, according to Matthew 14:23 , Mark 6:46 , that of prayer , and this does not contradict John’s account; both accounts supplement each other.