John 6:19

6:15-21 Here were Christ's disciples in the way of duty, and Christ was praying for them; yet they were in distress. There may be perils and afflictions of this present time, where there is an interest in Christ. Clouds and darkness often surround the children of the light and of the day. They see Jesus walking on the sea. Even the approaches of comfort and deliverance often are so mistaken, as to become the occasions of fear. Nothing is more powerful to convince sinners than that word, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; nothing more powerful to comfort saints than this, I am Jesus whom thou lovest. If we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, though the night be dark, and the wind high, yet we may comfort ourselves, we shall be at the shore before long.

John 6:19 . ἐληλακότες οὖν ὡς σταδίους εἰκοσιπέντε ἢ τριάκοντα . The Vulgate renders “cum remigassent ergo,” and modern Greek ἐκωπηλάτησαν , rightly; see Aristoph., Frogs , 195; and other passages in Elsner. The stadium was about 194 (Rich gives 202) yards, so that nine rather than eight would go to a mile. The disciples had rowed about three miles. [The best discussion of the direction they were taking is in the Rob Roy on the Jordan , p. 374.] θεωροῦσι τὸν Ἰησοῦν περιπατοῦντα ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης “they see Jesus walking on the sea”. It has been suggested that this may only mean that Jesus was walking “by” the sea, ἐπί being used in this sense in John 21:1 . But that ἐπί can mean “on” the sea is of course not questioned (see Lucian’s Vera Historia , where this incident is burlesqued; also Job 9:8 , where, to signalise the power of God, He is spoken of as ὁ περιπατῶν ὡς ἐπʼ ἐδάφους ἐπὶ θαλάσσης ). Besides, why should the disciples have been afraid had they merely seen Jesus walking on the shore? They manifested their fear in some way, and He says to them, Ἐγώ εἰμι , I am He, or It is I.

Had rowed (ἐληλακότες) Literally, had driven or propelled (the boat). Five and twenty, etc. The lake being about forty furlongs, six miles, at its broadest, they had gone only a little more than half-way. They see (θεωροῦσι) Rev., behold; with an intent gaze. See on John 1:18. Both Luke and John use this word frequently. Drawing nigh Literally, becoming nigh. Wyc., to be made next to the boat. Mark adds, He would have passed by them, and Luke that they thought Him a phantom.

19. they see Jesus—"about the fourth watch of the night" (Mt 14:25; Mr 6:48), or between three and six in the morning. walking on the sea—What Job (Job 9:8) celebrates as the distinguishing prerogative of God, "Who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and TREADETH UPON THE WAVES OF THE SEA"—What Agur challenges as God's unapproachable prerogative, to "GATHER THE WIND IN His fists, and BIND THE WATERS IN A GARMENT" (Pr 30:4)—lo! this is here done in flesh, by "THE Son of man." drawing nigh to the ship—yet as though He "would have passed by them," Mr 6:48 (compare Lu 24:28; Ge 18:3, 5; 32:24-26). they were afraid—"cried out for fear" (Mt 14:26), "supposing it had been a spirit" (Mr 6:49). He would appear to them at first like a dark moving speck upon the waters; then as a human figure, but—in the dark tempestuous sky, and not dreaming that it could be their Lord—they take it for a spirit. (How often thus we miscall our chiefest mercies—not only thinking them distant when they are near, but thinking the best the worst!)

19 . five and twenty or thirty furlongs ] This pretty closely corresponds with ‘in the midst of the sea’ ( Matthew 14:24 ). The lake is nearly seven miles across in the widest part. walking on the sea ] There is no doubt that this means on the surface of the water, although an attempt has been made to shew that the Greek may mean ‘on the sea-shore.’ Even if it can, which is perhaps somewhat doubtful, the context shews plainly what is meant. How could they have been afraid at seeing Jesus walking on the shore? S. Mark tells us that it was about the fourth watch, i.e. between 3.0 and 6.0 a.m. S. Matthew alone gives S. Peter’s walking on the sea.

John THE FIFTH MIRACLE IN JOHN’S GOSPELJohn 6:19 - John 6:20 . There are none of our Lord’s parables recorded in this Gospel, but all the miracles which it narrates are parables. Moral and religious truth is communicated by the outward event, as in the parable it is communicated by the story. The mere visible fact becomes more than semi-transparent. The analogy between the spiritual and the natural world which men instinctively apprehend, of which the poet and the orator and the religious teacher have always made abundant use, and which it has sometimes been attempted, unsuccessfully as I think, to elevate to the rank of a scientific truth, underlies the whole series of these miracles. It is the principal if not the only key to the meaning of this one before us. The symbolism which regards life under the guise of a voyage, and its troubles and difficulties under the metaphor of storm and tempest, is especially natural to nations that take kindly to the water, like us Englishmen. I do not know that there is any instance, either in the Old or in the New Testament, of the use of that to us very familiar metaphor; but the emblem of the sea as the symbol of trouble, unrest, rebellious power, is very familiar to the writers of the Old Testament. And the picture of the divine path as in the waters, and of the divine prerogative as being to ‘tread upon the heights of the sea,’ as Job has it, is by no means unknown.

So the natural symbolism, and the Old Testament use of the expressions, blend together, as I think, in suggesting the one point of view from which this miracle is to be regarded. It is found in two of the other Evangelists, and the condensed account of it which we have in this Gospel, by its omission of Peter’s walking on the water, and of some other smaller but graphic details that the other Evangelists give us, serves to sharpen the symbolical meaning of the whole story, and to bring that as its great purpose and signification into prominence. We shall, I think, then, best gain the lessons intended to be drawn if we simply follow the points of the narrative in their order as they stand here. I. We have here, first of all, then, the struggling toilers. The other Evangelists tell us that after the feeding of the five thousand our Lord ‘constrained’ His disciples to get into the ship, and to pass over to the other side. The language implies unwillingness, to some extent, on their part, and the exercise of authority upon His. Our Evangelist, who does not mention the constraint, supplies us with the reason for it. The preceding miracle had worked up the excitement of the mob to a very dangerous point. Crowds are always the same, and this crowd thought, as any other crowd anywhere and in any age would have done, that the prophet that could make bread at will was the kind of prophet whom they wanted.