FOOTNOTES:

^a Literally, ‘test him’ or ‘assess him,’ but the context doesn’t imply a pass/fail kind of test.

^b A denarius was a coin worth one day’s wages for labor. Philip is saying that about 7 months’ worth of income would not be enough.

^c The Greek says, ‘him,’ here. ‘Jesus’ has been added for clarity.

^d Traditionally, ‘boy’ but the word paidarion can refer to a male or female youth. It could refer to a child or adolescent, as opposed to paidion which meant a pre-adolescent child.

^e More literally, ‘So the men sat down, about 5,000 in number.’ The word is aner, which typically means ‘men’ specifically, not people more broadly, though it sometimes seems to be used for ‘people’ occasionally. There were likely women and children in addition to the 5,000 men, but the customary way to count crowds in the culture was by the men.

^f Reference to Deuteronomy 18:15. It predicts another prophet like Moses would come. Apparently they saw the feeding of the 5,000 as a connection with manna.

^g Or ‘lake.’ This refers to the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake Tiberias. The word is ‘thalassa,’ which is usually translated as ‘sea.’ However, it was used for any reasonably large body of water and did not, as English does, differentiate between fresh water (‘lake’) and salt water (‘sea’).

^h Literally, ‘twenty-five or thirty stades.’ A ‘stade’ was about 607 feet. Twenty-five stades to thirty states then was about 2.87 to 3.45 miles. The Sea of Galilee is about 7 miles at its widest point, so they would have been near the middle of the lake.

ⁱ Literally, this would be “I am.” It’s the same thing Jesus says in John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I am,” that made people try to stone him for blasphemy. Part of me wants to translate it that way so the parallel with Exodus 3 and John 8 is clear, but it would be a really awkward thing to say in English in the context. Some translations read, “It is I.” Much more natural would be “It’s me!” but while that’s common usage, it’s technically grammatically incorrect. Another option would be “I am I.” No option really seems great.

^j Compare to Exodus 14:13

^k The literal Greek wording is hard to follow for an English speaker: “no other boat had been there except the one that Jesus had not gotten into the boat with his students.”

^l Or ‘work’ or ‘take action’ or ‘accomplish’

^m Or ‘lasts’ or ‘remains’

ⁿ ‘Agelong life’ is a reference to Deuteronomy 30:18-20.

^o Or ‘enact’ or ‘take action toward’ or ‘work’ or ‘give effort toward’

^p Or ‘efforts’ or ‘works’ or ‘accomplishments,’ or ‘actions’ … ‘of God’

^q Or ‘effort’ or ‘work’ or ‘accomplishment,’ or ‘action’ … ‘of God’

^r Or ‘working’… or ‘how are you giving effort/taking action?’

^s Or ‘fathers’

^t Citation of Psalm 78:24. See also Exodus 16.

^u In English, it’s proper to use the relative pronoun ‘who’ with people and ‘that’ with anything else. Greek did not make that distinction, only that the gender matched the grammatical gender of the word (another issue not present in English). Since the sentence is about the symbol of ‘bread,’ the relative pronoun ‘that’ is more appropriate. It does not take away from the significance of the symbol, that what the symbol represents can be a person (such as Jesus).

^v The Greek is kurios, traditionally, ‘lord’ which was a common way to address people respectfully, not always a statement of allegiance or acknowledgment of rulership.

^w See John 6:27

^x Many translations use ‘never be hungry’ instead of ‘not hungry at all.’ Either way is appropriate. The Greek ou me is two forms of ‘not’ back-to-back and serves as an emphatic negative, something like ‘never’ or ‘not at all’ or ‘absolutely not.’

^y Despite other translations wording it as ‘everyone’ or ‘all’ being the subject of the sentence, it is in the accusative case, and ‘Father’ is in the nominative case, which means ‘Father’ is the subject of the sentence, and ‘everyone/all’ is the object of the sentence.

^z This word is in the subjunctive mood, making it carry a sense of being conditional or possible, rather than a statement describing fact (which would be translated as ‘won’t’)

^aa The Greek Ekbalo exo literally means to ‘throw away outside.’ Another way to translate this phrase could be “throw anyone out who comes to me.”

^bb See verses 32-33, 35, and 41. Any teaching about the significance of this verse must take into account that this passage is about Jesus being the new manna.

^cc The Greek apollumi can be translated as to ‘destroy’ or ‘perish’ or ‘ruin.’ It can also be translated as ‘lose’ or ‘lose out on’ in either the sense of failing to obtain something expected or losing something someone already has or being separated from something where a connection had existed. It is one of these latter definitions that seem appropriate in this context.

^dd Reference to Isaiah 8:18

^ee Or ‘cause to stand’ or ‘wake up’ or ‘rouse.’ This word anistemi, is the verb form of anastasis (‘rising up’) in John 5:29. See the note there for additional information. There is another verb, histemi, with a related meaning, in fact overlapping quite a bit. However, the prefix an- makes the ‘up’ part of the meaning more emphatic. Anistemi can mean literally to ‘stand up’ or ‘wake up’ and it can mean to ‘stand up’ in the metaphorical sense of taking a stand against oppressors or an army. There are examples of it being used to refer to ‘putting forward’ a champion to do battle in a duel and examples of it being used of driving people out of a land, ‘uprooting’ them from their homes. In John 5:29, the noun form is used of people being woken up from death and uprooted from their tombs and brought forth for either life or assessment (traditionally, judgment). Here, it seems to be related to that concept, being connected with life, which may also carry hints of those other meanings as well, particularly about rising up against oppression and being put forth as champions.

^ff The Greek literally just says ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Judeans’ (it’s the same word in Greek). In some places, it has been translated as ‘Judean authorities,’ but in this is taking place in Galilee, not Judea. However, it clearly can’t be all the Jews in the area since some have responded favorably. Different translations have handled the issue differently. Many translate it as ‘the Jews.’ However, the NET translates it as ‘the Jews who were hostile to Jesus,’ and the NLT translates it as ‘the people.’ Since verse 59 states that Jesus was saying these things while teaching in a synagogue, it seems likely that the point is that the audience was entirely made up of religiously observant Jews, not that all Jews everywhere were on the wrong side or against Jesus. While ‘the Jews’ is the most technically accurate, the gross antisemitism of most of church history warrants thinking twice before making any decisions that could paint all Jews in a particular light, especially one opposing Jesus or what God is doing.

^gg The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is organized in three sections: Torah, Prophets, and Writings.

^hh Citation of Isaiah 54:13. In context, Isaiah 54 is about an impending rescue by the Lord from violence and oppression. It uses language associated with the New Jerusalem.

ⁱⁱ Or ‘bread.’ The Greek word artous most literally means ‘bread,’ but it was frequently used to mean food in general, or possibly to refer to bread as metonymous for any food. Hebrew does the same with the word lechem, sometimes specifically about bread and often referring to food of any kind. The question of which way to translate it here is somewhat complex. It is a metaphor and doesn’t have a literal context to determine which way to go. Understanding where the metaphor is coming from his helpful, but there are connections to be made with both ‘bread’ and ‘food.’ The feeding of the five thousand that happened earlier in this same chapter featured bread, but it also featured fish, so one could argue for ‘bread’ or ‘food’ with that story as the reference point. People often associate manna with bread; however, that is only because of confusion with the Hebrew word lechem, which can also be translated as ‘food’ but literally means ‘bread.’ Manna was not bread, and in fact the word ‘manna’ is Hebrew for ‘what is it?’ There could be connections with the last supper and Jesus saying ‘this is my body’ regarding the Passover bread, which is a strong argument for ‘bread.’ However, the immediate context seems not to point specifically to bread and more to whatever can be eaten to sustain someone, i.e. ‘food.’ Either reading could be appropriate, but ‘food’ seems to have the stronger argument.

^jj There is no word for ‘still’ in the Greek here, but in English this sentence sounds like the manna caused them to die, which is not the case.

^kk There are two emphatic words in this sentence that are difficult to convey in English. The word kai is used to the effect of something like ‘specifically.’ It is reflected here as ‘to be exact.’ The other word is the inclusion of ego for ‘I’ in English. Greek verbs include an indication of who is the subject already, so when a separate pronoun is included, it’s either for clarity or for emphasis. It is used for emphasis here, which is what is being attempted to do by translating it as ‘I am going to give’ instead of ‘I will give.’

^ll The Greek literally just says ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Judeans’ (it’s the same word in Greek). In some places, it has been translated as ‘Judean authorities,’ but in this is taking place in Galilee, not Judea. However, it clearly can’t be all the Jews in the area since some have responded favorably. Different translations have handled the issue differently. Many translate it as ‘the Jews.’ However, the NET translates it as ‘the Jews who were hostile to Jesus,’ and the NLT translates it as ‘the people.’ Since verse 59 states that Jesus was saying these things while teaching in a synagogue, it seems likely that the point is that the audience was entirely made up of religiously observant Jews, not that all Jews everywhere were on the wrong side or against Jesus. While ‘the Jews’ is the most technically accurate, the gross antisemitism of most of church history warrants thinking twice before making any decisions that could paint all Jews in a particular light, especially one opposing Jesus or what God is doing.

^mm See note in John 6:39

ⁿⁿ Greek, logos. See note in John 1:1.

^oo Traditionally, ‘hard’ or ‘difficult.’ However, it doesn’t seem like it’s difficult in the sense of understand it but not knowing how to implement it. The possible meanings of skleros include 1) being physically hard or rough to the touch, 2) being harsh enough to cause a negative reaction (unpleasant, repulsive, offensive), 3) being difficult or impossible to endure, 4) being unyielding (harsh, stubborn, cruel).

^pp This word is rhema, not logos. Rhema means something that was spoken, whether a word or sound or sentence or a whole speech.

^qq This is a more literal translation of the Greek diabolon. There’s a history of it being transliterated into other languages and eventually becoming traditionally ‘devil,’ but I’m convinced translating the meaning is the better way to go.

^rr There’s no good reason for the ‘as’ ending, and other modern language translations don’t make a difference between ‘Judah’ (Hebrew origin) and ‘Judas’ (carrying over the Greek lettering for the Hebrew name.)

^ss Traditionally, ‘Iscariot.’ It was likely not his name, however. It means ‘men of Kerioth’ which was a city of Moab that was condemned for its actions against Israel, and it was likely used as a label regarding his betrayal of Jesus. See Jeremiah 48:21-47 (especially verses 21-27).

^tt Literally, ‘this one’