Such were the carnal thoughts about the Messiah and His Kingdom of those who sought Jesus because they ate of the loaves, and were filled.' What a contrast between them and the Christ, as He pointed them from the search for such meat to work for the meat which He would give them,' not a merely Jewish Messiah, but as the son of Man.' And yet, in uttering this strange truth, Jesus could appeal to something they knew when He added, for Him the Father hath sealed, even God.' The words, which seem almost inexplicable in this connection, become clear when we remember that this was a well-known Jewish expression. According to the Rabbis, the seal of God was Truth (AeMeTH),' the three letters of which this word is composed in Hebrew ({hebrew}) being, as was significantly pointed out, respectively the first, the middle, and the last letters of the alphabet. [3437] Thus the words of Christ would convey to His hearers that for the real meat, which would endure to eternal life - for the better Messianic banquet - they must come to Him, because God had impressed upon Him His own seal of truth, and so authenticated His Teaching and Mission.
In passing, we mark this as a Jewish allusion, which only a Jewish writer (not an Ephesian Gospel) would have recorded. But it is by no means the only one. It almost seems like a sudden gleam of light - as if they were putting their hand to this Divine Seal, when they now ask Him what they must do, in order to work the Works of God? Yet strangely refracted seems this ray of light, when they connect the Works of God with their own doing. And Christ directed them, as before, only more clearly, to Himself. To work the Works of God they must not do, but believe in Him Whom God had sent. Their twofold error consisted in imagining, that they could work the Works of God, and this by some doing of their own. On the other hand, Christ would have taught them that these Works of God were independent of man, and that they would be achieved through man's faith in the Mission of the Christ.
2. As it impresses itself on our minds, what now follows [3438] took place at a somewhat different time - perhaps on the way to the Synagogue. It is a remarkable circumstance, that among the ruins of the Synagogue of Capernaum the lintel has been discovered, and that it bears the device of a pot of manna, ornamented with a flowing pattern of vine leaves and clusters of grapes. [3439] Here then were the outward emblems, which would connect themselves with the Lord's teaching on that day. The miraculous feeding of the multitude in the desert place' the evening before, and the Messianic thoughts which clustered around it, would naturally suggest to their minds remembrance of the manna. That manna, which was Angels' food, distilled (as they imagined) from the upper light, the dew from above' [3440] - miraculous food, of all manner of taste, and suited to every age, according to the wish or condition of him who see ate it, [3441] but bitterness to Gentile palates - they expected the Messiah to bring again from heaven. For, all that the first deliverer Moses had done, the second - Messiah - would also do. [3442] And here, over their Synagogue, was the pot of manna - symbol of what God had done, earnest of what the Messiah would do: that pot of manna, which was now among the things hidden, but which Elijah, when he came, would restore again!
Here, then, was a real sign. In their view the events of yesterday must lead up to some such sign, if they had any real meaning. They had been told to believe on Him, as the One authenticated by God with the seal of Truth, and Who would give them meat to eternal life. By what sign would Christ corroborate His assertion, that they might see and believe? What work would He do to vindicate His claim? Their fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness. To understand the reasoning of the Jews, implied but not fully expressed, as also the answer of Jesus, it is necessary to bear in mind (what forms another evidence of the Jewish authorship of the Fourth Gospel), that it was the oft and most anciently expressed opinion that, although God had given them this bread out of heaven, yet it was given through the merits of Moses, and ceased with his death. [3443] This the Jews had probably in view, when they asked: What workest Thou?'; and this was the meaning of Christ's emphatic assertion, that it was not Moses who gave Israel that bread. And then by what, with all reverence, may still be designated a peculiarly Jewish turn of reasoning - such as only those familiar with Jewish literature can fully appreciate (and which none but a Jewish reporter would have inserted in his Gospel) - the Saviour makes quite different, yet to them familiar, application of the manna. Moses had not given it - his merits had not procured it - but His Father gave them the true bread out of heaven. For,' as He explained, the bread of God is that [3444] which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.' Again, this very Rabbinic tradition, which described in such glowing language the wonders of that manna, also further explained its other and real meaning to be, that if Wisdom said, Eat of my bread and drink of my wine,' [3445] it indicated that the manna and the miraculous water-supply were the sequence of Israel's receiving the Law and the Commandments [3446] - for the real bread from heaven was the Law. [3447] [3448]