Luke 22:39-40

Luke had earlier revealed that during this week Jesus spent His nights on the Mount of Olives (Luke 21:37). It is apparently to this custom that the writer referred here. Judas would have expected Jesus to do this, and Jesus did not try to elude Judas. Jesus’ control over His own destiny is again evident in His leading the disciples out of the city to the mount. Luke did not identify the place where Jesus prayed as Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36; Mark 14:32) perhaps because he did not want to detract from the action in the pericope. Jesus focused the disciples’ attention on their need for God’s protection from temptation (Gr. peirasmon) and instructed them to pray for it (cf. Luke 11:4). Only Luke wrote that He told them to pray for this, and only Luke mentioned that Jesus gave this command to all the disciples. The effect is that the reader sees all the disciples as needing to pray and as failing.