John 6

John 6 is the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records Jesus' miracles of feeding the five thousand and walking on water, the Bread of Life Discourse, popular rejection of his teaching and Peter's confession of faith. The final verses anticipate Jesus' betrayal by Judas Iscariot. The author of the book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this Gospel.

The events recorded in chapter 5 are set in Jerusalem. As chapter 6 opens, the setting has moved to the Sea of Galilee, one hundred miles further north. "After these things Jesus went over (or away to) the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias" (New King James Version and English Standard Version texts). The Greek text reads μετα ταυτα (meta tauta, "after these things"). The New International Version translates these words as "some time after this" to remove any suggestion that the transition is immediate. Plummer observes that "the scene shifts suddenly from Judaea to Galilee; but we are told nothing about the transit. We see more and more as we go on, that this Gospel makes no attempt to be a complete or connected whole. There are large gaps in the chronology." and that of Plummer. Watkins suggests that "the mountain" refers to "the hill country" to the east of the lake, rather than to a specific mountain.

And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. "A ship": that is, a "boat" that was large enough to hold the twelve disciples. When the disciples had rowed about twenty five or thirty stadia (three or four miles), and were therefore in "the broadest portion of the lake", they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near their boat. At its widest, the lake is about five miles broad. The disciples "willingly receive Jesus into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going" (i. e. Capernaum) (John 6:21 (NKJV)). Theologian John Gill, taking his lead from the 4th or 5th century poet Nonnus, discusses whether this verse indicated an additional miracle of "immediate travel":

The word is translated as "immediately" in most English translations but "presently" in the Douai Rheims version. The Pulpit Commentary notes a number of occasions in the New Testament where ευθεως does not "mean instantaneously, but simply that the next thing to notice or observe".

Plummer considers that "We have here a complicated sentence very unusual in S. John (but compare John 13:1–4 (NKJV)); it betrays a certain literary awkwardness, but great historical accuracy  the structure of the sentence is no argument against the truth of the statements which it contains." and Bengel's Gnomen identifies them as "small vessels". Jesus comments in verse 26 that people had been looking for him, not because of the signs they had seen but because they had eaten of the loaves and were filled, although in verse 14 the evangelist had testified that they had seen the sign that Jesus did and from this sign they had recognised Him as the prophet foretold by Moses. The Pulpit Commentary argues that the distinction reflects their superficial understanding: