John 6:31

John 6:31. Our fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness. Amongst the miracles wrought by Moses the Jews seem (and with reason) to have assigned to the manna a foremost place. In a Hebrew commentary on Ecclesiastes there is preserved a saying of great interest in connection with this passage: ‘As the first Redeemer made the manna to descend, as it is written, Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you; so the later Redeemer also shall make the manna to descend, as it is written, May there be abundance of corn in the earth' (Psalms 72:19).

As it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Of the many characteristics distinguishing the miracle of the manna, one is here dwelt upon, neither the abundance of its supply nor its continuance, but its source: it was ‘bread out of heaven.' The bread with which they themselves had just been fed, though marvellously increased in quantity, was still natural bread, the bread of earth: ‘bread out of heaven' was the proof received by their fathers that their Benefactor was the God of heaven. What similar evidence could Jesus offer? The words here quoted from Scripture do not exactly agree with any passage of the Old Testament. In Psalms 78:24 we read (following the Greek version), ‘And He rained for them manna to eat, and gave them bread of heaven;' and in Exodus 16:4, ‘Behold I rain for you bread out of heaven.' The words in the verse before us are therefore substantially a quotation from the psalm, with one important change introduced from the narrative of Exodus, ‘out of heaven' for ‘of heaven.' The change is important, because it points more distinctly to the source of the supply and not its quality only, and because the expression ‘out of heaven' is taken up by our Lord and used by Him with marked emphasis.