Then they willingly received him. — This is doubtless correct as an interpretation, but it is too full for a translation. The Greek cannot mean more than, “Then they were willing to receive Him.” They are re-assured by His voice, and their fears cease. That they did receive Him into the ship is stated by St. Matthew and St. Mark, and is implied here. That the words may mean more than a “wish” to receive Him is shown by St. 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,... whither they were going. It follows from John 6:19 that they were at this time about half-way across the lake — i.e., 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 St. 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. It would on this supposition be difficult to understand why the earlier Gospels omit what would surely have seemed to be among the greatest miracles, and why St. 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, and a strong wind kept blowing, and they rowed against it for five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs. The word rendered “immediately” — which is more exactly our straight-way — may find its full meaning in the straight line of the boat’s after-course, as contrasted with its being tossed hither and thither 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 —
“Thou Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest Thine own ark;
Amid the howling wintry sea
We are in port if we have Thee.”
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 St. 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 Genesareth. (See Matthew 14:34-36; Mark 6:53-56.) For St. 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.