FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION. __________________________________________________________________
[3421] It is specially requested that this chapter be read along with the text of Scripture.
[3422] We are here involuntarily reminded of the fate of Elijah on the morning after the miracle on Mount Carmel. But how different the bearing of Christ from that of the great prophet!
[3423] vv. 22, 24.
[3424] St. John vi. 53-58.
[3425] ver. 59.
[3426] Westcott, ad. loc.
[3427] vi. 25-65.
[3428] vv. 25-36.
[3429] vv. 41-52.
[3430] vv. 52-58.
[3431] vv. 61-65.
[3432] ver. 26.
[3433] St. John vi. 25-29.
[3434] Canon Westcott notes the intended realism in the choice of words: Literally, "were satisfied with food as animals with fodder."' - chortsthete.
[3435] Shabb. 30 b; Jer. Sheqal. vi. 2.
[3436] Kethub. 111 b.
[3437] Jer. Sanh. 18 a; Ber. R. 81.
[3438] St John vi. 30-36.
[3439] Comp. Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 256, 257.
[3440] Yoma 75 b.
[3441] Shem. R. 25.
[3442] Midr. on Eccles. i. 9.
[3443] Targ. PseudoJon. on Deut. xxxiv. 8; Taan. 9 a.
[3444] Not as in the A.V. of ver. 33: He Which cometh down from heaven.' The alteration is most important in the argument as addressed to the Jews: the one they could understand and would admit, not so the other.
[3445] Prov. ix. 5.
[3446] Shem. R. 25.
[3447] Comp. Chag. 14 a.
[3448] In the Midrash on Eccl. ii. 24; iii. 12; viii. 15, we are told, that when in Ecclesiastes we read of eating and drinking, it always refers to the Law and good works.
[3449] St. John vi. 37-40.
[3450] ver. 41.
[3451] After having arrived at this conclusion, I find that Canon Westcott has expressed the same views, and I rejoice in being fortified by so great an authority.
[3452] But not here and there one dead. In general, see vol. i. p. 633, where the question of Jewish belief on that subject is discussed.
[3453] Sanh. 98 b.
[3454] Midrash on Ps. xciii. 1; Pirké de R. Eliez. 32, ed. Lemb. p. 39 b.
[3455] So Canon Westcott; and also Godet ad loc.
[3456] Mark the special meaning of theorn as previously explained.
[3457] St. John vi. 40.
[3458] St. John vi. 41-51.
[3459] This is not narrated in the Fourth Gospel. But allusions like this cover the whole early history of Jesus, and prove that omissions of the most important facts in the history of Jesus are neither due to ignorance of them on the part of the writer of the Fourth Gospel, nor to the desire to express by silence his dissent from the accounts of the Synoptists.
[3460] St. John iii. 3 &c.
[3461] Canon Westcott has called attention to this.
[3462] St. John xii. 32.
[3463] Is. liv. 13 in Ber. R. 95 on Gen. xlvi. 28; Jerem. xxxi. 34 in Yalkut vol ii. p. 66 d.
[3464] For other Rabbinic applications of these verses to the Messiah and His times, see the Appendix on Messianic passages.
[3465] The words on Me' are spurious.
[3466] ver. 48.
[3467] The words in the A.V., which I will give,' are spurious.
[3468] vv. 53-58.
[3469] Canon Westcott (ad loc.) clearly shows, that the reference to the Holy Supper can only be secondary. Mark here specially, that in the latter we have the Body,' not the Flesh' of the Lord.
[3470] ver. 42.
[3471] Comp. here the remarks on ver. 27, about Truth as the seal with which God sealed the Christ.
[3472] ver. 55.
[3473] ver. 56.
[3474] Mark here also the special meaning of theorte.
[3475] ver. 62.
[3476] ver. 65; comp. vv. 37, 44.
[3477] St. Matt. xv. 12.
[3478] St. John vi. 66.
[3479] vv. 68, 69.
[3480] This is the reading of all the best MSS., and not as in the A.V. that Christ, the Son of the Living God.' For the history of the variations by which this change was brought about, see Westcott, ad loc.