Verse 22 Constrained. There was but one boat, or ship, as it is called, (John 6:22,) and the disciples seem to have been unwilling to leave Jesus without any apparent means of rejoining them. But the crisis was one of considerable excitement and danger, and special precautions to effect the quiet dispersion of the people, seem to have been rendered necessary by the high state of excitement which prevailed among them, as is stated John 6:14,15. John the Baptist, the great favorite of the people, had just been murdered by Herod; and Jesus himself was seeking, in these solitudes, a refuge from his cruelty. These facts, in connection with the miracle, produced such an excitement in this assembly, as to lead them to form the design of forcing Jesus to head them in an insurrection against Herod's authority. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the disciples were reluctant to leave their Master in such a place, and the object of such an excitement, and without any apparent means of returning across the lake to his friends.