Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
- KJV Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
- BSB Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.
- NKJV Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
- NASB Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jesus reminds them that their fathers ate manna in the wilderness and still died. The old bread could not give lasting life.
Overview
However miraculous, the manna only sustained physical life and could not conquer death. By recalling that the wilderness generation died, Jesus exposes the limits of what their fathers received. This prepares the contrast with the bread He offers, which secures eternal life and resurrection.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Jude 1:5Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe.
- Heb 3:17–19With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
- 1 Cor 10:3–5and all ate the same spiritual food;
- John 6:31Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”
- John 6:58This is the bread which came down out of heaven — not as our fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
- Zech 1:5Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
- Num 26:65For Yahweh had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” There was not a man left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
John declares him plainly: the eternal Word made flesh, the Lamb of God, the great 'I AM' — bread, light, door, shepherd, way, truth, life, resurrection — that you may believe and have life in his name.
How John 6:49 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.