John 6:4 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

NIV: The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

NASB: Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near.

CSB: Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near.

NLT: (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.)

KJV: And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

NKJV: Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.

This verse provides a clue regarding the timeline of chapters 5, 6, and 7. Passover is a celebration held close to April, while chapter seven's Feast of Tabernacles is held closer to October. This places events of chapter 6 about six months prior to those of chapter 7. Also based on New Testament context, this particular Passover would have been the year prior to Jesus' crucifixion.

One reason for Jesus' time here in Galilee is the very fact of His growing popularity. The end of chapter 5 saw Jesus disputing with religious leaders in Jerusalem over His Sabbath-day healing at the Pool of Bethesda. Other verses mention the tension between Christ and the Jewish priests, meaning at this stage of Jesus' ministry, it is safer and wiser to mostly stay away from Jerusalem.

Jesus is about to perform a major miracle, which makes the reference to Passover especially important. The point of the Passover celebration, for the Jewish people, is remembrance of their rescue from slavery in Egypt. There is a heavy focus on food, especially unleavened bread, in these Passover rites. Over the course of this chapter, Jesus will miraculously provide a meal of bread for the people who would have been especially sensitive to themes of divine intervention and rescue from oppression.

At the same time, Jesus' later explanation of His role as the Bread of Life would have run directly counter to Jewish interpretations of Passover. This would have contributed to their offense at His teaching, causing most to abandon Him (John 6:66).

John 6:1–15 describes Jesus' feeding thousands of people—the fourth of the gospel of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ's divinity. This is the only miracle recorded in all four of the gospel accounts. When the crowd complains of hunger, the disciples who are mentioned each react in unique ways. Starting with only a tiny lunch of bread and fish, Jesus miraculously divides the food, filling everyone, and leaving more left over than they had to begin with. The people are astounded by this, and immediately react by proclaiming Jesus as ''the Prophet'' who has been promised. Jesus, however, is not yet ready to be publicly announced. He also knows the true motivations of this crowd and will attempt to explain the real importance of the miracle to them the following day.

In chapter 6, Jesus feeds thousands of people who had been following Him. He does this by miraculously dividing the contents of a small lunch, leaving more left over than He had to begin with. At first, the crowd is amazed and they enthusiastically praise Jesus. After sending the disciples across the Sea of Galilee, and rescuing them from a storm by walking on the water, Jesus once again addresses the crowd. This time, He emphasizes the spiritual lesson behind His prior miracle. In response, most of those who had been praising Jesus turn away from Him in disappointment.

John chapter 6 occurs some months after the events of chapter 5, bringing the narrative to about one year prior to Jesus' crucifixion. As with the rest of the Gospel of John, the purpose is not to repeat information from the other three Gospels, but to focus on Jesus' status as God incarnate. This chapter continues to expand the list of Jesus' miraculous signs and the witnesses to His divine nature. Here, Jesus also gives the first of seven ''I AM'' statements found in this Gospel. Chapter 7 will once again skip ahead to a major public step in Jesus' path to the cross.

The gospel of John was written by the disciple John, decades later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls “signs”—in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in all of the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.