John 6:49

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(49) Your fathers . . . and are dead.—Better, . . . and died.—The manna which their fathers ate (John 6:31) seemed to them a greater work than this which He has done. Its true relation to Him is shown in the fact that those who ate it afterwards died; whereas He is the true spiritual food for the world, and those who feed upon Him shall not afterwards die. That was manna, special in time and circumstance; this is bread, the true sustenance for all times and all circumstances. That seemed to them to come from heaven, and this from earth; but this outer earth-born form of flesh contains the true life, in the only way in which humanity could receive it. The life itself cometh down from heaven.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:47-51 The advantage of the manna was small, it only referred to this life; but the living Bread is so excellent, that the man who feedeth on it shall never die. This bread is Christ's human nature, which he took to present to the Father, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; to purchase all things pertaining to life and godliness, for sinners of every nation, who repent and believe in him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Your fathers did eat manna - There was a real miracle performed in their behalf; there was a perpetual interposition of God which showed that they were his chosen people.

And are dead - The bread which they ate could not save them from death. Though God interfered in their behalf, yet they died. We may learn,

1. That that is not the most valuable of God's gifts which merely satisfies the temporal wants.

2. That the most distinguished temporal blessings will not save from death. Wealth, friends, food, raiment, will not preserve life.

3. There is need of something better than mere earthly blessings; there is need of that bread which cometh down from heaven, and which giveth life to the world.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

49. Your fathers—of whom ye spake (Joh 6:31); not "ours," by which He would hint that He had a higher descent, of which they dreamt not [Bengel].

did eat manna … and are dead—recurring to their own point about the manna, as one of the noblest of the ordained preparatory illustrations of His own office: "Your fathers, ye say, ate manna in the wilderness; and ye say well, for so they did, but they are dead—even they whose carcasses fell in the wilderness did eat of that bread; the Bread whereof I speak cometh down from heaven, which the manna never did, that men, eating of it, may live for ever."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Your fathers by nature, or in respect of unbelief, did eat manna in the wilderness, and they are naturally dead; (manna would not always preserve their natural life); and those of them who were unbelievers, are also dead eternally; their eating of manna, which was a type of me, without believing in me, would not save them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,.... All the while they were in the wilderness, for the space of forty years, till they came to the borders of the land of Canaan; this was their only food on which they lived, during their travels through the wilderness. It is observable, that Christ says, not "our fathers", but "your fathers"; for though Christ, as concerning the flesh, came of these fathers, yet in every sense they were rather theirs than his; because regard may be had to such of them more especially who ate the manna as common food, and not as spiritual meat, as typical of the Messiah, as others did; and whom these, their offspring, did very much resemble. Though perhaps the reason of the use of this phrase may be, because the Jews themselves had used it in John 6:31, and Christ takes it up from them.

And are dead. This food, though it supported them in life for a while, could not preserve them from a corporeal death, and still less from an eternal one: for some of them not only died the first, but the second death.

Geneva Study Bible

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 6:49-50. Οἱ πατέρες, κ.τ.λ.] “regeruntur Judaeis verba ipsorum John 6:31,” Bengel.

ἀπέθανον … ἀποθάνῃ] a diversity in the reference which is full of meaning: loss of earthly life, loss of eternal life, whose development, already begun in time (see on John 3:15), the death of the body does not interrupt (John 11:25).

οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἄρτος, κ.τ.λ.] of this nature is the bread which cometh down from heaven: one (τὶς) must eat thereof, and (in consequence of this eating) not die. This representation is contained in οὗτος … ἵνα; see on John 6:29. The expression, however, is not conditional (ἐάν τις), because the telic reference (ἵνα) does not belong to the last part merely. The present participle shows that Jesus does not mean by οὗτος His own concrete Personality, which is not named till John 6:51, but intends to set forth and exhibit the true bread from heaven generally, according to its real nature (comp. John 6:58). On τὶς, one, comp. Dem. Phil. i. 8, and Bremi, p. 118; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. 883; Nägelsbach on the Iliad, p. 299, ed. 3.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 6:49-50. οἱ πατέρες … μὴ ἀποθάνῃ, “Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and died: this is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die”. In other words: The manna which was given to your fathers to maintain them in physical, earthly life, could not assert its power against death, and maintain them continually in life. Your fathers died physically. The bread which comes down from heaven does not give physical life; it is not sent for that purpose, but the life which it is given to maintain, it maintains in continuance and precludes death. Taken in connection with the context, the words interpret themselves. Godet however says: “Jesus, both here and elsewhere, certainly denies even physical death in the case of the believer. Cf. John 8:51. That which properly constitutes death, in what we call by this name, is the total cessation of moral and physical existence. Now this fact does not take place in the case of the believer at the moment when his friends see him die.” This seems to misrepresent the fact of death for the sake of misrepresenting the present passage.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

49. Christ answers them out of their own mouths. They had spoken of the manna as superior to the multiplied loaves and fishes; but the manna did not preserve men from death. The same word is used both in John 6:49 and John 6:50; therefore for ‘are dead’ it will be better to substitute died. Moreover, the point is, not that they are dead now, but that they perished then; the manna did not save them. They ate the manna and died.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 6:49. Οἱ πατέρες, your fathers) concerning whom ye have spoken, John 6:31, “Our fathers did eat manna,” etc.—ὑμῶν, your) Your, He saith, not our: by which very expression He shows, that He has a higher descent than they had supposed; John 6:42, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?”—ἔφαγον τὸ μάννα ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, did eat manna in the wilderness) Their own very words are retorted on the Jews; see John 6:31.—καὶ ἀπέθανον) and yet they died, and that by a terrible death.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 49, 50. - Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they died. The Lord went back to the very words of the Jews in ver. 31. The Heaven-given manna by which Jehovah sustained the temporal life of the fathers in the wilderness did not convey the antidote to death. "The carcases [of these fathers] fell in the wilderness." He does not say, "perished out of God's sight forever," or were condemned, but that there was nothing in the eating of manna which arrested, or averted, or triumphed, over death; yet he added: This (Bread of life) is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, in order that any one (τὶς) may eat thereof, and may not die. The eating of the Bread of life (the life-giving Bread), which I myself am, the thorough assimilation, the entire acceptance of me as God's Gift of life to the world, confers the very principle of life; and, though a partaker may seem to perish, he does not die (cf. John 8:51-11:26, notes) - he will not "taste of death," "he will never die." The life will be stronger than death; it will survive apparent extinction. Meyer says that here Christ reserves to ver. 51 the positive offer "of his own concrete Personality, and is exhibiting the true Bread, according to its real nature." Still he has said, "I am the life-giving Bread," and is undoubtedly preparing for the following announcement, which adds a new and startling thought, calculated to sustain the former one. John 6:49

Vincent's Word Studies

Are dead (ἀπέθανον)

The aorist points, not to their present condition but to the historical fact; they died. So Rev.