John 6:26

John 6:26 . Ἀμὴν … ἐχορτάσθητε . In this pursuing crowd Jesus sees no evidence of faith or spiritual hunger, but only of carnality and misunderstanding. Ye follow me οὐχ ὅτι εἴδετε σημεῖα , “not because you saw signs,” not because in the feeding of the 5000 and other miracles you saw the Kingdom of God and glimpses of a spiritual world, ἀλλʼ ὅτι ἐφάγετε ἐκ τῶν ἄρτων καὶ ἐχορτάσθητε , but because you received a physical satisfaction. This gave the measure of their Messianic expectation. He was the true Messiah who could maintain them in life without toil. Sense clamours and spirit has no hunger.— χορτάζειν , from χόρτος , means “to give fodder to animals,” and was used of men only “as a depreciatory term”. In later Greek it is used freely of satisfying men; see Kennedy’s Sources of N.T. Greek , p. 80; Lightfoot on Php 4:12 .

The miracles (σημεῖα) Both the insertion of the definite article and the translation miracles in the A.V. tend to obscure the true sense of the passage. Jesus says: You do not seek me because you saw signs. What you saw in my works was only marvels. You did not see in them tokens of my divine power and mission. Were filled (ἐχορτάσθητε) See on Matthew 5:6; see on Luke 15:16.

{4} Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. (4) They that seek the kingdom of heaven lack nothing: nevertheless, the gospel is not the food of the stomach but rather of the mind.

26. Ye seek me, &c.—Jesus does not put them through their difficulty, says nothing of His treading on the waves of the sea, nor even notices their question, but takes advantage of the favorable moment for pointing out to them how forward, flippant, and superficial were their views, and how low their desires. "Ye seek Me not because ye saw the miracles"—literally, "the signs," that is, supernatural tokens of a higher presence, and a divine commission, "but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." From this He proceeds at once to that other Bread, just as, with the woman of Samaria, to that other Water (Joh 4:9-15). We should have supposed all that follows to have been delivered by the wayside, or wherever they happened first to meet. But from Joh 6:59 we gather that they had probably met about the door of the synagogue—"for that was the day in which they assembled in their synagogues" [Lightfoot]—and that on being asked, at the close of the service, if He had any word of exhortation to the people, He had taken the two breads, the perishing and the living bread, for the subject of His profound and extraordinary discourse.

26–34 . Distinction between the material bread and the Spiritual Bread 26 . not because ye saw the miracles ] Better, not because ye saw signs . There is no article in the Greek; and the strict meaning of ‘signs’ should be retained. They had seen the miracle , but it had not been a sign to them; it had excited in them nothing better than wonder and greediness. The plural does not necessarily refer to more than the one sign of the Feeding; the generic plural. 26–59 . The Discourse on the Son as the Support of Life God’s revealed word and created world are unhappily alike in this; that the most beautiful places in each are often the scene and subject of strife. This marvellous discourse is a well-known field of controversy, as to whether it does or does not refer to the Eucharist. That it has no reference whatever to the Eucharist seems incredible, when we remember (1) the startling words here used about eating the Flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His Blood; (2) that just a year from this time Christ instituted the Eucharist; (3) that the primitive Church is something like unanimous in interpreting this discourse as referring to the Eucharist. A few words are necessary on each of these points. (1) Probably nowhere in any literature, not even among the luxuriant imagery of the East, can we find an instance of a teacher speaking of the reception of his doctrine under so astounding a metaphor as eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Something more than this must at any rate be meant here. The metaphor ‘eating a man’s flesh’ elsewhere means to injure or destroy him. Psalm 27:2 ( John 14:4 ); James 5:3 . (2) The founding of new religions, especially of those which have had any great hold on the minds of men, has ever been the result of much thought and deliberation. Let us leave out of the account the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and place Him for the moment on a level with other great teachers. Are we to suppose that just a year before the Eucharist was instituted, the Founder of this, the most distinctive element of Christian worship, had no thought of it in His mind? Surely for long beforehand that institution was in His thoughts; and if so, ‘Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you’ cannot but have some reference to ‘Take eat, this is My Body,’ ‘Drink ye all of it, for this is My Blood.’ The coincidence is too exact to be fortuitous, even if it were probable that a year before it was instituted the Eucharist was still unknown to the Founder of it. That the audience at Capernaum could not thus understand Christ’s words is nothing to the point: He was speaking less to them than to Christians throughout all ages. How often did He utter words which even Apostles could not understand at the time. (3) The interpretations of the primitive Church are not infallible, even when they are almost unanimous: but they carry great weight.

John 6:26 . Λέγω , I say ) The people themselves did not know their own true character so well as Jesus now exhibits it to them. Up to this time Jesus had collected mere hearers; now, in the midst of the time of His ministry, He begins to make a selection, by means of His figurative discourse concerning His passion, and the benefit to be derived from it through faith.— οὐκ ὅτι εἴδετε σημεῖα , not because ye saw the miracles ) They had not as yet been led by the miracles to faith: John 6:29 , etc.: otherwise faith, and not the desire of food, would have prompted them to seek Jesus.— σημεῖα , miracles ) in the case of the sick, as also in the case of the loaves: John 6:2 ; John 6:14 , “A great multitude followed Him, because they saw His miracles on them that were diseased ;—Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did—( in feeding the 5000)—they said, This is of a truth that prophet.”— ἐφάγετε , ye did eat ) The people, anxious about food, were wishing that they might daily receive it in the same way; and they were now no longer, as before, John 6:2 , attracted to Him by the mere sight of His miracles, but rather by the desire of being fed. Comp. Matthew 14:20 , note [the fragments were on that occasion gathered up for future use as food, not, as the manna, merely for a memorial: the people were not to carry any away as a curiosity].

(26) Jesus does not answer their question. There is an earlier sign than that about which they now ask, the spiritual significance of which neither they nor the disciples have realised ( Mark 6:52 ). He does not satisfy their curiosity, but with the solemn “Verily, verily,” begins to reveal this hidden truth. Not because ye saw the miracles.—Better, not because ye saw signs. There is no article in the original, and the common rendering “miracles” quite misses the sense. They had seen miracles and had felt their force as wonders; what they had not done was to enter into the spiritual significance, and see in them signs of the eternal truth. They regarded the whole matter from without. It was to them nothing more than an eating yesterday, which may be repeated to-day; or it may be He will allow them to take Him and make Him King now, though He did not then.