(14) Miracle.--Better, sign. (Comp. John 2:11.)

That Jesus did.--Better, that He did. The example is instructive, as showing how words were added at the beginning of a portion read in church. See, among other examples in the Book of Common Prayer, the Gospels for St. John the Evangelist's Day (John 21:19), Quinquagesima (Luke 18:31), the Third Sunday in Lent (Luke 11:14), the Fifth Sunday in Lent (John 8:46), the Second Sunday after Easter (John 10:11).

This is of a truth that prophet.--This verse is peculiar to St. John. The reception or rejection of Christ is always present to his thoughts. He remembers that the effect of the miracle on the minds of those men, was that they were convinced that this was the Prophet whom they expected, and for whom they had before taken John the Baptist (John 1:21).

Verse 14. - The people (ἄνθρωποι) therefore, when they saw the sign which he wrought - when they witnessed the marvel, admitted that it was a testimony to what was special and authoritative in the great Healer and Life-giver, a "sign" of his higher nature - said, This is verily the Prophet that is coming into the world. This was probably in reference to the great prediction (Deuteronomy 18:18) to which such frequent and solemn reference was made. From John 1:21, 25, we learn that the Sanhedrists distinguished between "the Christ," "the Elijah," and "that Prophet;" but these verses show how the two ideas were blended in the minds of the people. As Jesus fulfilled one or more of the predictions of the Old Testament, and embodied the foreshadowings of his entire career which were given in the temple and the sabbath, in the ritual and the priest, in the prophet and the king, it was gradually revealed to the world that in him all fulness dwelt. At all events, just as in the case of Nathanael, the prophetic gifts of Jesus suggested to the guileless man that he was King of Israel, so here we find a similar connection of ideas.

6:1-14 John relates the miracle of feeding the multitude, for its reference to the following discourse. Observe the effect this miracle had upon the people. Even the common Jews expected the Messiah to come into the world, and to be a great Prophet. The Pharisees despised them as not knowing the law; but they knew most of Him who is the end of the law. Yet men may acknowledge Christ as that Prophet, and still turn a deaf ear to him.Then those men,.... The five thousand men, who had been fed with the loaves and fishes:

when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did; in feeding so many of them, with so small a quantity of food; in multiplying the provision in such a prodigious manner, that after they had eaten to the full, so many baskets of fragments were taken up:

said, this is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world; meaning that prophet, that Moses spoke of, in Deuteronomy 18:15; for the ancient Jews understood this passage of the Messiah, though the modern ones apply it to others; See Gill on Acts 3:22. And these men concluded that Jesus was that prophet, or the true Messiah, from the miracle he wrought; in which he appeared, not only to be like to Moses, but greater than he.