Charles Ellicott Commentary John 6:21

"They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat: and straightway the boat was at the land whither they were going." — John 6:21 (ASV)

Then they willingly received him.—This is undoubtedly correct as an interpretation, but it is too comprehensive for a translation. The Greek cannot mean more than, “Then they were willing to receive Him.” They are reassured by His voice, and their fears cease. That they did receive Him into the ship is stated by Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, and is implied here. That the words may mean more than a “wish” to receive Him is shown by Saint John’s usage in John 1:44; John 5:35; John 8:34.

And immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.—Better, ... where they were going. It follows from John 6:19 that they were at this time about halfway across the lake—that is, from two to three miles from the shore. No such explanation as that they were near the shore, but in the darkness and confusion of the storm did not know it, is consistent with the plain meaning of these definite words.

On the other hand, it is not necessary to suppose that Saint John here adds the narrative of another miracle. Where all was miraculous this may well, indeed, have been thought so too; but the analogy of the miracles of our Lord does not lead us to expect the use of divine power to accomplish what was within the reach of human effort.

On this supposition, it would be difficult to understand why the earlier Gospels omit what would surely have seemed to be among the greatest miracles, and why Saint John mentions it only in a passing sentence. The words appear rather to contrast the ease and rapidity with which the second half of the voyage was accomplished in His presence—before which the winds and waves were hushed into a calm, and their fears and doubts passed into courage and hope—with the first half, when the sea kept rising, a strong wind kept blowing, and they rowed against it for twenty-five or thirty furlongs. The word translated “immediately”—which is more exactly our straightway—may find its full meaning in the straight line of the boat’s subsequent course, as contrasted with its being tossed here and there during the storm. The whole context seems to find its full meaning in the sense of difficulty and danger before our Lord was received into the boat, and in the sense of safety and peace afterwards. The Psalmist of the English Christian Year has expressed this in familiar words:

“You Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest Your own ark;
Amid the howling wintry sea
We are in port if we have You.”

It is scarcely too much to think that the familiar words of him who is Psalmist of Jewish and Christian year alike were present to the mind of Saint John:

“For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind,
Which lifteth up the waves of (the deep).
They mount up to the heaven,
They go down again to the depths:
Their soul is melted because of trouble.

He maketh the storm a calm,
So that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet;
So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.” (See the whole passage, Psalms 107:23–33.)

The miracle is followed in the other accounts by the healings in the land of Gennesaret. (Mark 6:53–56.) For Saint John, the whole leads up to the discourse at Capernaum. He has told how our Lord and the disciples have crossed again to the west of the lake, but the narrative at once returns to the multitude who have seen the sign, and for whom there remains the interpretation.