world, and provided eternal life for every member of Adaiil*a family who would eat of it, whether Jew or Gentile.
We should mark, again, what a strong argumenf these worda supply in favour of the doctrine of Christ being God's gift to alL That all the world has not life from Christ, and does not believe in Him, is undoubtedly true. But that life is provided in Christ, and salvation sufiBcient for all the world, appears to be the natu- ral interpretation of the text. ♦ 24, — [Then said they. ..Lord... give us this bread.] There is a striking resemblance between the thought expressed in this verse, and the thought of the Samaritan woman, when she heard of the living water that Christ could give : — " Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither conae hither to draw." (John iv. 15.) In both cases we see desire called forth and excited by our Lord's words. There is a vague sense of something great and good being close at hand, and a vague wish expressed to have it. In the case of the Samaritan woman, the wish proved the first spark in a thorough conversion to God. In the case of the Jews before us, the wish seems to have been nothing more than the " desire of the slothful," and to have gone no further. Wishing and admiring are not conversion.
Let us note, carefully, that there is nothing hitherto to show that the Jews understood our Lord to call Simself the "bread of God," or " the true bread." That there was such a thing as the true and satisfying bread, — that it must be the same as that *' meat which endureth to everlasting life," they seem to have concluded; — and that it was something which our Lord could give, they inferred. But there is not a word to make us think they saw it at present to mean Christ himself This is a weighty argument in favour of that view of the preceding verse which I have tried to support, viz., — that it ought to be translated " the bread of God is that bread," not " He."
There is some probabihty in Lightfoot's remark, that our Lord's hearers, like most Jews, had their minds stuffed with foolish and superstitious notions about great banquets and feasts, which they expected Messiah to give them, whenever He appeared. They had a tradition that Leviathan and Behemoth were to be slain, and their flesh made into a great feast for Israel when Mtssiah came. Our Lord, possibly, had this tradition in His mind, and desired to turn the minds of the Jews to the true food vhich Messiah had come to give.