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Joh_6:25-26.[232] Πέραν τ . θαλάσσ .] in the synagogue at Capernaum, Joh_6:59. But πέραν τ . θαλ . has importance pragmatically, as showing that it formed a subject of amazement to them to find Him already on the western shore.
πότε ] when? for it must have been, at the earliest, after the arrival of the disciples (Joh_6:22); and in this lay the incomprehensible how? no other boat having crossed, and the journey round by land being too far. They have a dim impression of something miraculous; “quaestio de tempore includit quaestionem de modo,” Bengel. Jesus does not enter upon their question, nor gratify their curiosity, but immediately charges them with the unspiritual motive that prompted them to seek Him, in order to point them to higher spiritual food. For γέγονας , venisti, see on Joh_1:15.
οὐχ … ἀλλ .] not “non tam … quam” (Kuinoel, etc.); the ὅτι εἴδετε σημ . is absolutely denied. Comp. Fritzsche, ad Marc. Exc. II. p. 773. In the miraculous feeding they should have seen a divinely significant reference to the higher Messianic bread of life, and this ought to have led them to seek Jesus; but it was only the material satisfaction derived from the miraculous feeding that brought them to Him, as they hoped that He would further satisfy their carnal Messianic notions.
σημεῖα ] They had seen the outward miracle, the mere event itself, but not the spiritual significance of it,—that wherein the real essence of the σημεῖον , in the true conception of it, consisted. The plural is not intended to include the healings of the sick, Joh_6:2 (Bengel, Lücke, and most others), against which see Joh_6:4, but refers only to the feeding, as the antithesis ἀλλʼ ὅτι shows, and it is therefore to be taken generically, as the plural of category.
[232] See, concerning all the occurrences, ver. 26 ff., Harless, Luther. Zeitschrift, 1867, p. 116 ff.