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.