John 6:16-18

“ When the evening was come, his disciples went down to the seashore; 17 and having entered into the boat, they were crossing the sea towards Capernaum; and it was already dark and Jesus had not come to them. And the sea was agitated by a strong wind. ”

The word went down does not imply that they were still on the heights where they had spent the first part of the day with Jesus, but only (see the πάλιν of John 6:15) that the place where the miracle occurred was situated above the shore properly so called. What order had Jesus given His disciples before leaving them? According to the Synoptics, that they should embark for the other side of the sea. This is likewise implied by the narrative of John; for the supposition is inadmissible that they would have embarked, as is related in John 6:17, leaving Jesus alone on the eastern shore, if He had not made known to them His will in this regard. They even hesitate, as we see from John 6:16-17, to execute this command; they wait for this until the last light of the day. But how can we explain the end of John 6:17 ?

These last words seem to say that they were expecting Jesus, as if He had had the intention of rejoining them (a view which is rendered more probable by the reading οὔπω, not yet, of the Alexandrian authorities). But this would be in contradiction to the order to depart which He must have given them. It has been held that the words: He had not yet rejoined them, were written only from the standpoint of that which really happened later, when Jesus came to them miraculously on the water; but this sense seems quite unnatural. I think it is more simple to suppose that, inasmuch as the direction from Bethsaida Julias to Capernaum is nearly parallel with that of the northern shore of the lake, Jesus had appointed for them a meeting-place at some point on that side, at the mouth of the Jordan, for example, where he counted upon joining them again. If not, it only remains to hold with Weiss that the pluperfects (the night had already come; Jesus had not rejoined them) refer, not to the moment when the disciples were already on the sea, but to that when they embarked. But it is difficult to reconcile the imperfect ἤρχοντο, literally they were coming, with this meaning. It would be necessary in that case to suppose that in John 6:17-18 John wished only to bring together the different grounds of anxiety which weighed upon the disciples; the night which prevented them from making their course on the water, the absence of Jesus and the violence of the tempest. Is not this rather an expedient than an explanation?