Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and are dead. He says that the manna was a perishing food to their fathers, for it did not free them from death. It follows, therefore, that souls do not find anywhere else than in him that food by which they are fed to spiritual life. Besides, we must keep in remembrance what I formerly stated, that what is here said does not relate to the manna, so far as it was a secret figure of Christ; for in that respect Paul calls it spiritual food, (1-Corinthians 10:3.) But we have said that Christ here accommodates his discourse to the hearers, who, caring only about feeding the belly, looked for nothing higher in the manna. Justly, therefore does he declare that their fathers are dead, that is, those who in the same manner, were devoted to the belly, or, in other words, who thought of nothing higher than this world. [1] And yet he invites them to eat, when he says that he has come, that any man may eat; for this mode of expression has the same meaning as if he said, that he is ready to give himself to all, provided that they are only willing to believe. That not one of those who have once eaten Christ shall die -- must be understood to mean, that the life which he bestows on us is never extinguished, as we stated under the Fifth Chapter.

Footnotes

1 - "C'est a dire, ne pensoyent plus haut que ce monde."

Your fathers did eat manna - There was a real miracle performed in their behalf; there was a perpetual interposition of God which showed that they were his chosen people.
And are dead - The bread which they ate could not save them from death. Though God interfered in their behalf, yet they died. We may learn,
1. That that is not the most valuable of God's gifts which merely satisfies the temporal wants.
2. That the most distinguished temporal blessings will not save from death. Wealth, friends, food, raiment, will not preserve life.
3. There is need of something better than mere earthly blessings; there is need of that bread which cometh down from heaven, and which giveth life to the world.

Your fathers did eat manna - and are dead - That bread neither preserved their bodies alive, nor entitled them to life eternal; but those who receive my salvation, shall not only be raised again in the last day, but shall inherit eternal life. It was an opinion of the Jews themselves that their fathers, who perished in the wilderness, should never have a resurrection. Our Lord takes them on their own ground: Ye acknowledge that your fathers who fell in the wilderness shall never have a resurrection; and yet they ate of the manna: therefore that manna is not the bread that preserves to everlasting life, according even to your own concession.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,.... All the while they were in the wilderness, for the space of forty years, till they came to the borders of the land of Canaan; this was their only food on which they lived, during their travels through the wilderness. It is observable, that Christ says, not "our fathers", but "your fathers"; for though Christ, as concerning the flesh, came of these fathers, yet in every sense they were rather theirs than his; because regard may be had to such of them more especially who ate the manna as common food, and not as spiritual meat, as typical of the Messiah, as others did; and whom these, their offspring, did very much resemble. Though perhaps the reason of the use of this phrase may be, because the Jews themselves had used it in John 6:31, and Christ takes it up from them.
And are dead. This food, though it supported them in life for a while, could not preserve them from a corporeal death, and still less from an eternal one: for some of them not only died the first, but the second death.

Your fathers--of whom ye spake (John 6:31); not "ours," by which He would hint that He had a higher descent, of which they dreamt not [BENGEL].
did eat manna . . . and are dead--recurring to their own point about the manna, as one of the noblest of the ordained preparatory illustrations of His own office: "Your fathers, ye say, ate manna in the wilderness; and ye say well, for so they did, but they are dead--even they whose carcasses fell in the wilderness did eat of that bread; the Bread whereof I speak cometh down from heaven, which the manna never did, that men, eating of it, may live for ever."