Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 6:34 - 6:34
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_6:34 ff. Πάντοτε ] emphatically takes the lead.
The request is like that in Joh_4:15, but here, too, without irony (against Calvin, Bengel, Lampe), which would have implied unbelief in His power to give such bread. To explain the words as prompted by a dim presentiment concerning the higher gift (Lücke, B. Crusius, and most other expositors), is not in keeping with the stiffnecked antagonism of the Jews in the course of the following conversation. There is no trace of a further development of the supposed presentiment, nor of any approval and encouragement of it on the part of Jesus. The Jews, on the contrary, with their carnal minds, are quite indifferent whether anything supersensuous, and if so, what, is meant by that bread. They neither thought of an outward glory, which they ask for (Luthardt),—for they could only understand, from the words of Jesus, something analogous to the manna, though of a higher kind, perhaps “a magic food or means of life from heaven” (Tholuck),—nor had their thoughts risen to the spiritual nature of this mysterious bread. But, at any rate, they think that the higher manna, of which He speaks, would be a welcome gift to them, which they could always use. And they could easily suppose that He was capable of a still more miraculous distribution, who had even now so miraculously fed them with ordinary bread. Their unbelief (Joh_6:36) referred to Jesus Himself as that personal bread of life, to whom, indeed, as such, their carnal nature was closed.
Joh_6:35-36. Explanation and censure.
ἐγώ ] with powerful emphasis. Comp. Joh_4:26.
ὁ ἄρτος τ . ζωῆς ] ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ , Joh_6:33. Comp. Joh_6:68.
ὁ ἐρχόμ . πρός με ] of a believing coming (Joh_5:40); comp. Joh_6:47; Joh_6:44-45; Joh_6:65. For ἐρχόμ . and πιστεύων , as also their correlatives οὐ μὴ πειν . and οὐ μὴ διψ ., do not differ as antecedent and consequent (Weiss), but are only formally kept apart by means of the parallelism. This parallelism of the discourse, now become more excited, occasioned the addition of the οὐ μὴ διψήσῃ , which is out of keeping with the metaphor hitherto employed, and anticipates the subsequent turn which the discourse takes to the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood. We must not imagine that by this a superiority to the manna is intended to be expressed, the manna being able to satisfy hunger only (Lücke); for both οὐ μὴ πειν . and οὐ μὴ διψ . signify the same thing—the everlasting satisfaction of the higher spiritual need. Comp. Isa_49:10.
ἀλλʼ εἶπον ὑμῖν ] But I would have you told that, etc. Notice, therefore, that on ὅτι ἑωράκ ., κ . τ . λ ., does not refer to a previous declaration, as there is not such a one (Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Olshausen, B. Crusius, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, Godet, and most others: to Joh_6:26; Lücke, De Wette: to Joh_6:37-40; Euthymius Zigabenus: to an unwritten statement; Ewald: to one in a supposed fragment, now lost, which preceded chap. 6; Brückner: to a reproof which runs through the whole Gospel); on the contrary, the statement is itself announced by εἶπον (dictum velim). See, for this use of the word, Bernhardy, p. 381; Kühner, II. § 443. 1. In like manner Joh_11:42. In classical Greek, very common in the Tragedians; see especially Herm. ad Viger. p. 746.
καὶ ἑωράκ . με κ . οὐ πιστ .] ye have even seen me (not simply heard of me, but even are eye-witnesses of my Messianic activity), and believe not. On the first καί , comp. Joh_9:37, and see generally Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 3. 1; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 149 ff.