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Joh_6:4. Ἐγγύς ] close at hand. See on Joh_5:1. Paulus wrongly renders it not long since past. See, on the contrary, Joh_2:13, Joh_7:2, Joh_11:55. The statement is intended as introductory to Joh_6:5, explaining how it happened (comp. Joh_11:55) that Jesus, after He had withdrawn to the mountain, was again attended by a great multitude (Joh_6:5),—a thing which could not have happened had not the Passover been nigh. It was another crowd (not, as is commonly assumed, that named in Joh_6:2, which had followed Him in His progress towards the lake), composed of pilgrims to the feast, who therefore were going the opposite way, from the neighbourhood of the lake in the direction of Jerusalem. Thus Joh_6:4 is not a mere chronological note (B. Crusius, Maier, Brückner, Ewald), against which the analogy of Joh_7:2 (with the οὖν following, Joh_6:3) is decisive; nor is it, because every more specific hint to that effect is wanting, to be looked upon as referring by anticipation[224] to the following discourse of Jesus concerning eating His flesh and blood as the antitype of the Passover (B. Bauer; comp. Baur, p. 262, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, and already Lampe).
ἡ ἑορτὴ τ . Ἰουδαίων ] ΚΑΤ . ἘΞΟΧΉΝ . There is no intimation that Jesus Himself went up to this feast (Lücke). See rather Joh_7:1.
[224] Comp. also Godet: Jesus must have been in the position “d’un proscrit,” and could not go to Jerusalem to the Passover; He therefore saw in the approaching multitudes a sign from the Father, and thought, “Et moi aussi, je célébrerai une pâque.” This is pure invention.