Ἀμὴν … ἐχορτάσθητε. In this pursuing crowd Jesus sees no evidence of faith or spiritual hunger, but only of carnality and misunderstanding. Ye follow me οὐχ ὅτι εἴδετε σημεῖα, “not because you saw signs,” not because in the feeding of the 5000 and other miracles you saw the Kingdom of God and glimpses of a spiritual world, ἀλλʼ ὅτι ἐφάγετε ἐκ τῶν ἄρτων καὶ ἐχορτάσθητε, but because you received a physical satisfaction. This gave the measure of their Messianic expectation. He was the true Messiah who could maintain them in life without toil. Sense clamours and spirit has no hunger. χορτάζειν, from χόρτος, means “to give fodder to animals,” and was used of men only “as a depreciatory term”. In later Greek it is used freely of satisfying men; see Kennedy's Sources of N.T. Greek, p. 80; Lightfoot on Philippians 4:12.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising

Old Testament