MANNA. 301 



ed the morals of men, followed the popular manner of speaking ; 

 thus wisely accommodating himself to their harmless opinion, in 

 order to avoid giving them unnecessary offence. The passage may 

 be thus paraphrased : ' The bread from heaven, the true celestial 

 bread, Moses did not bestow on your forefathers ; he procured on- 

 ly bread fit to satiate the corporeal appetite, and appertaining only 

 to this fleeting, transitory life. (See verse 49). But my Father be- 

 stow eth on you, by me, bread which may, in the complete sense, 

 be termed bread from heaven ; such as is adapted to nourish the 

 soul, and will confer eternal salvation,' verse 33. Jesus calls him- 

 self the true celestial bread, inasmuch as, having descended from 

 heaven, he bestows on men the nourishment of the soul, namely, 

 the divine and saving truths of his gospel. (Kuinoel.) Since they 

 supposed that the manna was bread from heaven in the proper 

 sense, Jesus corrects their erroneous notion, by hinting that the 

 true heaven is there used par catachresin for the air, or sky ; as 

 when it is said, the fowls of heaven, i. e. the air : q. d. ' As that 

 descending from on high, nourished those who partook of it, so do 

 I also. But that was from the air ; 1 from the real heaven. Thai 

 nourished the bodies ; but 1 support and strengthen the souls of 

 men.' Our Lord's declaration imports, as Mr. Bloomfield imag- 

 ines, that it is in a subordinate sense only, that what dropped from 

 the clouds, and was sent for the nourishment of the body, still mor- 

 tal, could be called the bread of heaven, being but a type of that 

 which hath descended from the heaven of heavens, for nourishing 

 the immortal soul unto eternal life, and which is, therefore, in the 

 most sublime sense, the bread of heaven. 



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