Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Matthew 6:5-15
Praying 6:5-15 (cf. Luke 11:1-13) read more
Matthew 6:5-8,luke 11:1
Thomas Constable
Thomas Constable
Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Matthew 6:7-8
Jesus digressed briefly to give a further warning about repetitious prayer (Matthew 6:7-8) and a positive example of proper prayer (Matthew 6:9-15). Jesus’ disciples can fall into prayer practices that characterize the pagans. Jesus Himself prayed long prayers (Luke 6:12), and He repeated Himself in prayer (Matthew 26:44). These practices were not the objects of His criticism. He was attacking the idea that the length of a prayer makes it efficacious. Pagan prayer commonly relies on length and... read more
John Darby
Darby's Synopsis of the New Testament - Matthew 6:5
6:5 have (b-41) 'Have' has here the force of having all they have to expect -- they have the whole of it already. It is expressed in English by laying the stress on 'have.' Perhaps one might say 'have got.' read more
John Darby
Darby's Synopsis of the New Testament - Matthew 6:8
6:8 beg (c-19) Aiteo . see ch. 7.7. read more
John Dummelow
John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - Matthew 6:1-34
The Sermon on the Mount (continued)1. God’s approval, not man’s, to be sought in all our actions. Jesus does not say that we are to do good expecting no reward of any kind, but that we are to look for our reward to God alone: see on Matthew 6:4. That ye do not your alms] RV ’your righteousness.’ The same Heb. word (tsedakah) means both righteousness in general and almsgiving in particular. Our Lord probably used it in the former sense in Matthew 6:1, and in the latter sense in Matthew 6:2 hence... read more
Charles John Ellicott
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 6:5
(5) Standing in the synagogues.—The Jewish custom, more or less prevalent throughout the East, and for a time retained at certain seasons in the Christian Church, was to pray standing, with outstretched, uplifted hands, and there was nothing in the attitude as such that made it an act of ostentatious devotion; nor would there have been any ostentation in thus joining in the common prayer of the congregation assembled in the synagogue. What our Lord’s words point to, was the custom of going into... read more
Charles John Ellicott
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 6:6
(6) Enter into thy closet.—Literally, the store-closet of thy house. The principle, as before, is embodied in a rule which startles, and which cannot be binding literally. Not in synagogue or street, nor by the river-side (Acts 16:13); not under the fig-tree in the court-yard (John 1:50), nor on the housetop where men were wont to pray (Acts 10:9)—these might, each and all, present the temptations of publicity—but in the steward’s closet, in the place which seemed to men least likely, which... read more
Charles John Ellicott
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 6:7
(7) Use not vain repetitions.—The Greek word has a force but feebly rendered in the English. Formed from a word which reproduces the repeated attempts of the stammerer to clothe his thoughts in words, it might be almost rendered, “Do not stutter out your prayers, do not babble them over.” The words describe only too faithfully the act of prayer when it becomes mechanical. The devotion of the rosary, in which every bead is connected with a Pater Noster or an Ave Maria, does but reproduce the... read more
Charles John Ellicott
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 6:8
(8) Your Father knoweth.—This truth is rightly made the ground of prayer in one of the noblest collects of the Prayer Book of the English Church—“Almighty God, the Fountain of all wisdom, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking.” Comp. St. Paul’s “We know not what we should pray for as we ought” (Romans 8:26). But why then, it may be asked, pray at all? Why “make our requests known unto God” (Philippians 4:6)? Logically, it may be, the question never has been, and... read more
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Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Matthew 6:5-6
Jesus assumed that His disciples would pray, as He assumed they would give alms (Matthew 6:2) and fast (Matthew 6:16). Again He warned against ostentatious worship. The synagogues and streets were public places where people could practice their righteousness with an audience. The motive is what matters most. Obviously Jesus was not condemning public prayer per se (cf. Matthew 15:36; Matthew 18:19-20; 1 Timothy 2:8). Praying out loud was common among the Jews, though one could still pray out... read more