John Chapter 6 verse 1 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-71. - 2. Christ declares himself to be the Sustainer and Protector of the life of which he is the Source. Verses 1-15. - (1) The supply of human wants illustrated by a well known "sign" of power. Chronological difficulties beset our treatment of this miraculous narrative with its varied consequences and results. Many curious and even violent measures have been resorted to with a view to solve them. Some have supposed that ch. 5. and 6. have been inverted in order, and that thus the presence of our Lord in Galilee, mentioned in ch. 4, would account for the statement of ch. 6:1 and the journey to Jerusalem of ch. 5:1, be brought into closer relation with ch. 7. We cannot see the faintest indication or evidence whatever of any such treatment of the Gospel by the authors of the manuscripts or the quotations or versions. The evangelist has just completed his record of the conflict between Jesus and the recognized leaders of the people in Jerusalem. He had introduced our Lord's own vindication (based on the highest grounds) of his own right to deal with the rabbinical restrictions upon sabbath duty. These grounds were the eternal relations of his own inner nature and consciousness with the Father's. On no occasion had Christ made the uniqueness of his personal claims and powers more explicit. He called for entire obedience to his word as the condition of eternal life, and as the key to the Scriptures of God. If we had no synoptic tradition to give a closer historical setting of the narrative which here follows, we might take Meyer's view, and say that the "after these things" (μετὰ ταῦτα) of ver. 1 referred to the discourse of the previous chapter, and that the "departed" (ἀπῆλθε) referred to Jerusalem as its starting point; and, notwithstanding the extreme awkwardness of the expression, we might have supposed that "the other side" of the sea was the other side of it from Jerusalem (cf. John 10:40; John 18:1). Some commentators appear to have a morbid fear of reducing a difficulty, or seeing a harmony, between these four narratives. One thing is dear, that they are independent of one another, are not derived from each other, do each involve side views of the event distinct from the rest, and yet concur in the same general representation. The synoptists, however, place the "feeding of the multitudes" in the midst of a group of most remarkable and varied events. It is for them one page out of many descriptive of the Galilaean ministry, and which ultimately led to grievous departure from and diminution of the temporary popularity of the great Prophet. It would seem that bitter hostility, as well as excited enthusiasm, was checkering his early ministry. The synoptics take pains to show the combined effect of his self-revelations (1) on his own fellow townsmen (Luke 4:16-30; Mark 6:1-6); . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(1) After these things . . .--Allowing an undefined interval, which is filled up by the earlier Gospels. We need not adopt the purely arbitrary supposition that a portion of the Gospel between John 5, 6 has been lost, nor yet connect them in immediate order of time. For St. John the discourse is that for which the whole is recorded. The exact sequence of events is by him left undetermined.Went over the sea of Galilee--i.e., crossed over from Galilee to the eastern side of the lake.Sea of Tiberias.--Comp. John 21:1; but the phrases are not precisely the same. There it is simply "sea of Tiberias." Here it is "sea of Galilee, of Tiberias," the latter term being either an alternative rendering for Greek readers (comp. Note on John 1:28), or a limitation to that part of the lake which was opposite to Tiberias. We shall find reason to believe that the last chapter of the Gospel should be regarded as an appendix, and the present passage may mark the transition between the older names for the lake which meet us in the other Gospels, and the later name, which meets us for the first time in St. John, but was afterwards common in Greek writers. The town itself is named in the New Testament only in this John John 6:23. It was on the west of the lake, and is the present well-known Tabariyeh. Built by Herod the Tetrarch, it was, in accordance with the Herodian policy of courting Rome, named after the Emperor Tiberius. Eusebius tells us that it was commenced in the fourteenth year of Tiberius, which is itself an uncertain date (comp. Note on John 2:20); but we may accept it as placing the building in the time of our Lord, and as explaining that the name of the town does not meet us in the earlier Gospels, while it has at a late date, and at all events for Greek readers, extended to the lake.