John 6:32-33

“ Jesus therefore said to them: Verily, verily, I say unto you: Moses did not give you the bread from heaven; but my Father gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; 33 for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world. ”

Until this point, the thought of the auditors seemed to move in accord with that of Jesus, but this was due to an ambiguity: Jesus made announcement of a bread of a higher nature, and the Jews accepted the offer willingly, but on the condition that this food should be not only miraculous in its origin, but also of a material nature, like the manna, an ambrosia falling from heaven. Jesus now gives an explanation which brings to light the opposition between His thought and theirs.

The formula amen, amen foreshadows this contrast in the two points of view. The perfect δέδωκεν must be preferred to the aorist, which seems to have been introduced from John 6:31. The sense of the perfect is this: “The gift of the heavenly bread is not a thing which Moses accomplished for your fathers and yourselves.” The predominant contrast is not that of the two objects (Keil), but that of the two subjects. If they are in possession of the true bread from heaven, it is not by the act of Moses, it is by the gift of the Father who sends it to them at this very moment. This is what is indicated by the present δίδωσι, gives, which already affords a suggestion of what Jesus is about to say, namely, that it is God who makes this gift in His person. The word τὸν ἀληθινόν, the true, is added at the end of the sentence in order to place the spiritual, divine essence of this bread in contrast with such a gift as that of the manna, which, although miraculous in its origin, was material in its nature. The limiting words from heaven belong here and in the following verse, not to the verb has given (in opposition to Meyer) but as in Psalms 78:24, to the substantive bread. The position of this limiting word in the Greek indicates this, and it is on the idea of bread from heaven that the discussion turns.