Brief Ruminations: The bread of life and manna from heaven
Was Jesus hinting at Psalm 72 in John 6?
Psalm 72 is one of the royal messianic songs long recognized as eschatological. Did Jesus ever reference it? As far as I know, the only explicit quote or reference to the psalm is in Luke 1:68, but recently I’ve begun to wonder if Jesus (and John) alluded to it in John 6. Here’s Psalm 72:
Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!May they fear you while the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, throughout all generations!
May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth!
In his days may the righteous flourish,
and peace abound, till the moon be no more!May he have dominion from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth!
May desert tribes bow down before him,
and his enemies lick the dust!
May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands
render him tribute;
may the kings of Sheba and Seba
bring gifts!
May all kings fall down before him,
all nations serve him!For he delivers the needy when he calls,
the poor and him who has no helper.
He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and saves the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence he redeems their life,
and precious is their blood in his sight.Long may he live;
may gold of Sheba be given to him!
May prayer be made for him continually,
and blessings invoked for him all the day!
May there be abundance of grain in the land;
on the tops of the mountains may it wave;
may its fruit be like Lebanon;
and may people blossom in the cities
like the grass of the field!
May his name endure forever,
his fame continue as long as the sun!
May people be blessed in him,
all nations call him blessed!Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory!
Amen and Amen!The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.1
There’s a lot of goodness to soak up there, but I want to focus on a couple lines in relation to Jesus. May He be like rain that falls! He was, when He poured out His Spirit in Acts 2.
Let’s look at the other bolded line, “May there be an abundance of grain.” The Hebrew is, by all accounts, difficult here—at least that’s what I’m told2 and I have no education in the matter, so take everything I say here with a massive grain of salt. One particularly interesting translation of the verse is the JPS 1917:
May he be as a rich cornfield in the land upon the top of the mountains; May his fruit rustle like Lebanon; And may they blossom out of the city like grass of the earth.
Instead of the kingdom itself being described in terms of abundance, it is the king’s own abundance that overflows into the kingdom, kind of like verse 6 where it is the king himself who is the rain bringing nourishment to the earth.3 Whether this translation is grammatically possible is beyond my understanding, but it was interpreted in a similar way in an ancient rabbinic commentary on Ecclesiastes:
“That which has been is that which shall be” (Eccl. 1:9)…R. Berekiah said in the name of R. Isaac: As the first redeemer was, so shall the latter redeemer be. What is stated of the former redeemer? And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass (Exod. 4:20). Similarly will it be with the latter redeemer, as it is said, Lowly and riding upon an ass (Zech. 9:9). As the former redeemer caused manna to descend, as it is said, Behold I will cause to rain bread from heaven for you (Exod. 16:4), so will the latter redeemer cause manna to descend, as it is said, May he be as a rich cornfield in the land (Ps. 72:16). As the former redeemer made a well to rise [Exod 17:6], so will the latter redeemer bring up water, as it is said, And a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim (Joel 3:18).4
Interestingly, Jesus explicitly fulfills each of these three elements prefigured by Moses. According to some interpreters, Psa 72:16 describes the way the ultimate redeemer will be as manna from heaven and provide food for the entire kingdom in a way Moses never could. I’ll leave you with some words from John 6:
So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”5
Emphasis added. Quotations will be from ESV unless otherwise noted.
For example, Nancy deClaissé-Walford et al say the verse has “the two most problematic lines in the psalm, and their exact meaning is unclear” in The Book of Psalms (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament | NICOT). One of the reasons for the difficulty is pissat, often translated “abundance,” only appears this one time in the Bible.
cf. 2 Sam 7:11-16.
Kohelet Rabbah 1:9. In: Mitchell, D.C. (1997). The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Books of Psalms. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (252). Sheffield Academic Press.
John 6:30-58.