31. Our fathers did eat manna, &c.—insinuating the inferiority of Christ's miracle of the loaves to those of Moses: "When Moses claimed the confidence of the fathers, 'he gave them bread from heaven to eat'—not for a few thousands, but for millions, and not once only, but daily throughout their wilderness journey."

     32, 33. Moses gave you not, &c.—"It was not Moses that gave you the manna, and even it was but from the lower heavens; 'but My Father giveth you the true bread,' and that 'from heaven.'"

     33. For the bread of God is he, &c.—This verse is perhaps best left in its own transparent grandeur—holding up the Bread Itself as divine, spiritual, and eternal; its ordained Fountain and essential Substance, "Him who came down from heaven to give it" (that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us, 1Jo 1:2); and its designed objects, "the world."

     34. Lord, evermore give us this bread—speaking now with a certain reverence (as at Joh 6:25), the perpetuity of the manna floating perhaps in their minds, and much like the Samaritan woman, when her eyes were but half opened, "Sir, give Me this water," &c. (Joh 4:15).

     35. I am the bread of life—Henceforth the discourse is all in the first person, "I," "Me," which occur in one form or other, as STIER reckons, thirty-five times.