Continuing a Bible study of the Gospels:
(John 6:1) After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee which is the Sea of Tiberius.
In the last chapter, Jesus had healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, and then vindicated Himself against the Jews who questioned His authority to allow the healed man to take up his mat on the Sabbath. Gleaned from the other Gospel writers and commentators that I study, it seems it was quite a while after those things had happened that Jesus now went across the Sea of Galilee which is also called the Sea of Tiberius.
(2) And a great multitude followed Him because they saw His miracles which He did on those who were diseased.
A large crowd of people who had witnessed His miracles of healing followed Jesus.
(3) And Jesus went up in a mountain and there He sat with His disciples. (4) And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.
Jesus went up into a mountain and sat there with His disciples. It seems the Passover was nearing again so it had been over ten months since the incident at the pool of Bethesda.
(5) When Jesus then lifted up and saw a great company coming to Him, He said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?"
When Jesus looked up and saw the multitude of people coming toward Him, He asked Philip where they should buy bread to feed all the people. It may have been that Philip was in charge of providing such victuals, or perhaps he was of this area and might best know where they could buy bread.
(6) And this He did to prove him for He Himself knew what He would do.
Actually, we see Jesus's reason for asking Philip was to test his faith. After all, Philip had been with Jesus from the beginning and had seen Him turn water into wine. Would he not realize that Jesus could just as easily provide bread for all these people? Jesus already knew what He planned to do.
(7) Philip answered Him, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take a little."
It seems Philip failed the test. He answered in a secular manner attempting to show how impractical it was for them to pay two hundred pennyworth for bread, which may have been all they had, to only give each person a little bit.
(8) One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, (9) "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?"
Andrew, hearing Jesus's question to Philip, told Jesus that there was a boy there who had five loaves of barley bread and two small fish, but then added that that was way too inadequate to feed so many people.
(10) And Jesus said, "Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number, about five thousand.
Jesus instructed the disciples to have the people sit down on the plenteous green grass that was at the foot of the mountain. The people did as they were told and the men numbered about five thousand. The account in Matthew added that that didn't include women and children who were among the ones asked to sit down.
(11) And Jesus took the loaves and when He had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those who were sat down, and likewise of the fish as much as they wanted.
Jesus took the loaves of bread and gave thanks and blessed them and then distributed them to the disciples who in turn, passed bread out to the people. He did the same with the two fish, and the people were able to get as much food as they wanted.
(12) When they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing is lost."
When all the people had eaten their fill, Jesus told His disciples to gather up all the leftover scraps so that no food was wasted.
(13) Therefore they gathered together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained over and above to them who had eaten.
The disciples gathered the leftovers and filled twelve baskets with them, what started as one basket with five loaves and two small fish. And of course, that was what was left after all the people had eaten their fill.
(14) Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, "This is truly that Prophet who should come into the world."
When the people realized what a miracle Jesus had done in feeding them, they remarked that He was surely the great Prophet who was to come into the world of whom Moses had spoken, their long-awaited Messiah.
(15) When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him by force to make Him a king, He departed again into a mountain Himself alone.
Jesus began to perceive that the people might try to take Him to make Him their King, so He slipped away back up into a mountain by Himself.
(16) And when evening was come, His disciples went down to the sea,
While Jesus stayed for a little rest and solitude and probably prayer, His disciples went down to the sea. According to the accounts in Matthew and Mark, Jesus directed them to go ahead before Him to the other side of the sea.
(17) And entered into a ship and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark and Jesus had not come to them.
The disciples boarded a boat and sailed across the sea toward Capernaum. It had become dark and Jesus had not yet caught up to them.
(18) And the sea arose because of a great wind that blew.
While they were in the middle of the sea in the dark a storm arose with a great wind and caused the sea to swell up and lift up great waves.
(19) So when they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty furlongs, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the ship, and they were afraid.
The disciples had rowed about three and a half miles when they saw Jesus walking on the water of the sea. He was coming toward them and they were afraid. The account in Matthew said they thought it was a spirit they saw.
(20) But He said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." (21) Then they willingly received Him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land where they went.
Jesus called out to the disciples that it was He and they should not be afraid. It was at this point, the account in Matthew tells us that Jesus called Peter to Him and Peter walked on water toward Jesus until he became afraid and sank. It was after that when Jesus got into the boat. John added something none of the other gospel accounts mentioned. Once Jesus was onboard, the ship immediately was onshore at their destination. The account in Mark said only that as Jesus got into the boat, the wind ceased. Perhaps John did not mean that the boat was miraculously and instantaneously on the land at their destination but that it very quickly arrived, but John did seem to suggest an extraordinary sudden arrival.
(22) The day following, when the people who stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except that one in which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not gone with His disciples into the boat, but His disciples had gone away alone,
The next day the people whom Jesus had fed back on the other side of the sea saw that there were no boats there other than the one they had seen His disciples leave in, and they knew Jesus had not gone with them. Therefore, they would assume Jesus was still on that side of the sea.
(23) (However, there came other boats from Tiberius near to the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks)
John made a parenthetical statement that although there were no other boats at first, there then came other boats from Tiberius to the place where they had eaten the food Jesus had provided for them the evening before.
(24) When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they also took shipping and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
When the people saw that Jesus was not still on their side of the sea and neither were His disciples, they got into the boats that were arriving from Tiberius and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
(25) And when they had found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
The people indeed found Jesus on the other side of the sea at Capernaum and asked Him when He had come there as they knew He had not gone with His disciples in the only boat they had seen. His answer will be in the next post. Although this makes for a rather short post, this chapter is very long and this seems the best stopping place for now, as the rest of the chapter is of Jesus's words to the people.
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