John 6:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why, then, does John narrate this with such detail? Why did he not simply say that on the next day the people also crossed to the other side? By this he wishes to show us something else.

What is it? Christ gave even the people an opportunity to understand what had happened, not directly, but indirectly. They saw, he says, “that there was no other boat there except one, and that Jesus had not entered the boat.” Then, entering the boats from Tiberias, they “came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.”

What else, indeed, could one think except that He had crossed the sea by walking upon it? For it could not be said that He had crossed in some other boat. “There was no other boat there,” it says, “except the one into which His disciples had entered.”

The miracle was manifest. Having come to this thought, the people found other boats that had sailed from the other side. They entered them and crossed over to Capernaum.

Perhaps they follow because of wonder at the signs, yet without gaining benefit from them for faith. They offer the Wonderworker a kind of recompense only through involuntary praise.

This is a severe disease of mind and soul, which has not acquired through training the habit of choosing what is profitable.

The cause of this in them is delight in bodily pleasures alone, and attachment to coarse and temporary food more than devotion to spiritual goods.

They were more attached to such food than to the effort to acquire everything that can provide nourishment for eternal life. You may learn this also from what follows.

“On the next day the people who stood on the other side of the sea, from where the disciples had come, saw that there was no other boat there except the one into which His disciples had entered. They saw that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone away alone. Meanwhile other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Therefore, when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they entered the boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.”

After long perplexity, they finally supposed that Jesus Christ had crossed over the sea. Therefore they came to Capernaum seeking Him, since for the most part He stayed there.

On the next day, the people did not find the Wonderworker and His disciples at the place where the miracle of feeding had been performed. They themselves returned to Capernaum. The Lord was already then in the synagogue of Capernaum.

When they met Him there, the witnesses of yesterday’s miracle were perplexed about how He had arrived. They knew that He had not departed together with the disciples, and they wished to learn this from Him. This became the occasion for the Savior’s great discourse on the true bread of life, which He gives to men as food.

The time of His sufferings was drawing near. From the approaching Passover only one year remained until His death, which He was preparing to offer for the world. The Lord wished to prepare His disciples for this beforehand.

The people saw that Jesus Christ had not entered the boat, and that the disciples had set out alone. Therefore, on the next day, they hoped to find Jesus at the place where the miraculous feeding had occurred.

But when those who had set out from Tiberias did not find Him there, they understood that He had already crossed to the western shore. They then sailed to Capernaum.

They had not witnessed the miraculous walking upon the waters, and thought that Jesus Christ had gone to Capernaum along the shore. Sailing there in a boat, they probably thought they would arrive in Capernaum before Jesus.

The return to Capernaum of those miraculously fed in the wilderness.

The multitude of many thousands, miraculously fed and then calmed by Jesus, remained overnight on that same deserted shore where the miracle had taken place. All saw that only one boat stood by the shore. They saw that Jesus’ disciples entered that boat and departed, while Jesus, without even entering it, went up the mountain.

The next morning they apparently sought Jesus, but did not find Him. His disciples were not there either. Meanwhile, in their sight, boats from Tiberias, a city on the western shore of the lake, came to land.

The Savior had already begun His usual activity on the Galilean shore of the lake. Yet many of the people were still waiting for Him near Bethsaida Julias, thinking that He was somewhere there on the mountain in solitude.

When they heard that He had long since been near Capernaum, and knew that the disciples had set out alone in the boat, the people were greatly astonished. Arriving at Capernaum, many addressed Him in bewilderment: "Rabbi, when did You come here?"

The people saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there. The people searched for the Lord in the wilderness, knowing that He had not gone in the boat with the disciples the day before. Not finding Him, they probably thought that the Lord had left with others, though, it seems, they waited for His return.

When they saw that neither the Lord nor His disciples were on the boats that had come from Tiberias, they themselves boarded the boats and went to Capernaum. They hoped to find the Lord there, as in the city where He had His dwelling.

Under the impression of the miracle they had just experienced, the people were inclined to think that Jesus Christ would always feed His hearers miraculously. Thus it was not so much faith in the divine dignity of the Wonderworker as selfish thoughts of earthly well-being that moved the people to seek Jesus Christ and follow Him.

The Lord exposes this base disposition of the people: “You seek Me not because you saw miracles, but because you ate the bread and were filled. Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn 6:26-27).

Verses 22-25. The people who remained on the eastern shore of the lake hastened in the morning to find Jesus. They crossed in a boat that had come from Tiberias.

Since they knew that the disciples had entered the boat alone, and that there had been no other boat in the evening, they guessed, when they saw Jesus in Capernaum, that He had come there not without a miracle. "Rabbi, when did You come here?" they asked Him.

The crowd whom the Lord dismissed and calmed, after sending away the disciples, seems to divide into two parts. One part, obedient to the Lord’s word, went home along the northern shore of the lake. The other part, probably more stubborn, remained under the hills of Bethsaida Julias to await the Lord. Perhaps they even intended to carry out their plan, that is, to make the Lord king by force.

Let us note that the Lord later addresses this very part of the crowd with a reproach. They remained to wait for Him and then came on the boats from Tiberias. He says that they seek Him only because they ate the loaves and were filled (v. 26).