30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? 31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. (John 6:30-31 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Here the Jews tell our Saviour, that, before they will believe in him, they must see some sign from him, to confirm his doctrine, and prove him to be the Messias; they acknowledge Christ had wrought a great miracle in feeding five thousand persons with five barley loaves; but Moses fed their fathers in the wilderness, who were no less than six hundred thousand persons, with excellent manna from heaven, and this for forty years together; from whence they would seem to conclude, that they had more reason to believe Moses than Christ: not considering that Moses was but an instrument to obtain, by prayer the manna at the hands of God: but Christ was an agent, and that, by a creating power inherent in himself, he multiplied the five loaves to the feeding of five thousand.
Note, here, From the Jews requring a sign before they would believe, that he who publishes a new doctrine to the world, ought to confirm his mission by some miraculous operation.
2. That God honoured moses, his messenger, very much, and Christ his minister much more, in that both of them wrought great and special miracles for the confirmation of their mission.
3. That the Jews not believing Christ to be the true Messias, upon so many attestations, and after his divine mission was confirmed by such miraculous operations, rendered their infidelity inexcusable, and their obstinacy invincible.