Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Matthew · About this commentary
When You Pray
Matthew 6:5-15
5 “When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward. · WEB
A shut door, a short prayer, and six petitions that put God's name and kingdom before daily bread — with forgiveness singled out for comment.
"When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men" Matthew 6:5.
The correction is not against public prayer as such — the temple ran on it — but against prayer positioned where it will be observed. The street corner is chosen because it is where two roads' worth of people can see you.
"But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret" Matthew 6:6.
The inner room was the storeroom, often the only lockable space in a small house. The instruction is a shut door and a Father who is already there — and the same word for secret is used of the Father and of the place, which is the paragraph's comfort rather than its rebuke.
"In praying, don't use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking" Matthew 6:7.
The second error is different from the first: not performing for people but working on God — the assumption that volume, length or the right accumulation of formulas moves him. The answer given is a fact about him rather than a technique: your Father knows what things you need before you ask him Matthew 6:8. Prayer is not informing God or wearing him down.
"Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy" Matthew 6:9.
The model prayer is startlingly short after that, and its order is the teaching. Three petitions concern God — his name hallowed, his kingdom come, his will done on earth as it is in heaven — before a word is said about the person praying. And the first word is plural. There is no singular pronoun anywhere in it; a prayer given for the closed room is nevertheless prayed on behalf of others.
"Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors" Matthew 6:11–12.
Then three for us: bread for the day only, which is the manna arrangement Exodus 16:4 and a request that has to be made again tomorrow; forgiveness; and protection from being brought where we would fail.
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" Matthew 6:14.
Of the six petitions, one gets a comment attached — and it is the hardest sentence in the sermon. The clause in the prayer is as we also forgive, and the expansion makes the correspondence explicit in both directions. This is not forgiveness earned by forgiving; the parable that develops it has the servant forgiven an unpayable sum first and then refusing a trivial one Matthew 18:23–35. What it says is that a person who has genuinely received mercy and withholds it has not understood what he received, and the withholding is evidence about him rather than a payment owed.
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