Jesus Christ · The Sermon on the Mount
Praying in Secret
Prayer is never the question here — it is assumed, expected, the ordinary breath of a godly life. What Jesus corrects in these four verses is who His people are praying for and howthey go about it: not the standing-on-a- corner performance that plays to a crowd, and not the heaped-up words that treat volume as a substitute for a relationship with a Father who “knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
The Text
— Matthew 6:5–8And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward.The wrong audience — prayer performed so men can see it, not so the Father can hear it.
But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.The right room — shut the door, and find a Father who was already there.
And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.The wrong manner — heaping up words as if volume could inform a Father who already knows.
This is the middle panel of a triad — giving (6:1–4), prayer (6:5–8), fasting (6:16–18) — each disciplined by the same pattern: the practice is assumed, and Jesus corrects only the motive and the display. The Lord's Prayer that follows (6:9–15) is the positive model handed to disciples who have just been told what not to do; it has its own page and its own room to breathe.
The Shut Door
— Matthew 6:5–6 — the street corner, and the room with no one to perform forTHE STREET CORNER
“to be seen of men” — Matthew 6:5
THE AUDIENCE
everyone who passes — the prayer’s real addressee
THE REWARD STILL OWED
“they have their reward” — the applause was the payment, received in full, already spent
THE SHUT DOOR
“enter into thy closet… shut thy door” — Matthew 6:6
THE AUDIENCE
no one left in the room to perform for
THE REWARD STILL OWED
“thy Father… shall reward thee openly” — unspent, and paid by a different Payer
What He Is Saying
— wrong audience, wrong manner“When thou prayest” — not “if.” Jesus never questions whether His people pray. The hypocrites He describes are not condemned for praying in a synagogue or on a street corner; they are condemned for praying thereso that a crowd would notice, and stopping the moment the crowd stopped watching. “They have their reward” — the applause they were actually asking for, paid in full, with nothing left over from the Father.
Who the audience really wasthe corner, and who was watching
Standing to pray was the normal Jewish posture, not itself a fault — the hypocrites' failure was timing and location, praying loudly in the synagogue forecourt or on a busy corner exactly when the street was fullest. The prayer was real speech aimed at God, but it was staged for spectators, and the spectators were the actual target.
What the closet actually wasa real room, not a metaphor
Jesus is not inventing a figure of speech. Ordinary houses in first-century Judea commonly had a small private room set apart for devotion — often a chamber over the porch or on the flat roof, reached by an outside stair, used precisely for the kind of solitude no other room in a crowded house could offer. He is pointing His listeners toward a door they already had.
“Vain repetitions” names the second failure: treating length and volume as leverage on God, as if enough words could move a reluctant deity. Centuries earlier, the prophets of Baal had already run that experiment on Mount Carmel — crying out from morning until noon, the same appeal circling back on itself for hours, and nothing answered (1 Kings 18:26–29). Jesus tells His disciples plainly why their Father is not that kind of god to pray to: “he knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Not a Ban on Public Prayer
— a common misreading, correctedRead on its own, “enter into thy closet” sounds like a rule against ever praying where others can hear. It is not. Jesus Himself prays out loud, in public, standing at a tomb full of grieving mourners:
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”Jesus prays audibly, in front of a crowd, at Lazarus's tomb.
The earliest church follows Him into the same practice — the believers in Jerusalem lift their voices together, out loud, as one body, after Peter and John are released (Acts 4:24–31). Neither scene is a lapse. What Matthew 6:5–8 targets is ostentation and empty repetition, not prayer's public or communal form.
Hypocrites manifested the same spirit about prayer as almsgiving; it was done in public places. The word synagogues, here, clearly means, not the place of worship of that name, but places where many were accustomed to assemble - near the markets or courts, where they could be seen of many. Our Lord evidently could not mean to condemn prayers in the synagogues. It might be said that he condemned ostentatious prayer there, while they neglected secret prayer; but this does not appear to be his design.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), Matt 6:5
We are asked to pray with the bedroom door closed, as it were, and we are taught to pour out our prayer in every place. The saints' prayers were undertaken in the presence of wild animals, in prisons, in flames, from the depths of the sea and the belly of the beast. Hence we are admonished not to enter the recesses of our homes but the bedroom of our hearts. With the office of our minds closed, we pray to God not with many words but with our conscience, for every act is superior to the words of speakers.
Hilary of Poitiers· Commentary on Matthew 5.1 (367), Matt 6:6
The Voices on the Hypocrites' Prayer
— the church hears Matthew 6:5You may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that does not pray. For this shall every one that is godly pray. If prayerless, then graceless.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), Matt 6:5
Verily I say unto you, They have, &c.--The standing posture in prayer was the ancient practice, alike in the Jewish and in the early Christian Church.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:5
The Voices on the Inner Room
— the church hears Matthew 6:6It may be offered in any circumstances, however open, if not prompted by the spirit of ostentation, but dictated by the great ends of prayer itself. It is the retiring character of true prayer which is here taught.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:6
Enter into your inner chamber. Do not let the door stand open to the boisterous, through whom the things that are outside profanely rush in and assail the inner self.
Augustine of Hippo· Sermon on the Mount 2.3.11 (430), Matt 6:6
Augustine and the tradition after him widen the closet into a picture: the shut door is less about a literal room than about shutting out the noise that crowds the heart while it prays. The room helps; the shutting is the point.
The Voices on Vain Repetition
— the church hears Matthew 6:7–8With the Jews, says LIGHTFOOT, it was a maxim, that "Every one who multiplies prayer is heard." In the Church of Rome, not only is it carried to a shameless extent, but, as THOLUCK justly observes, the very prayer which our Lord gave as an antidote to vain repetitions is the most abused to this superstitious end; the number of times it is repeated counting for so much more merit.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:7
True prayer consists rather in the bitter groans of repentance, than in the repetition of set forms of words.
Gregory the Dialogist· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (604), Matt 6:7–8
Yet He will have His children pray to Him, and links all His promised supplies to their petitions for them; thus encouraging us to draw near and keep near to Him, to talk and walk with Him, to open our every case to Him, and assure ourselves that thus asking we shall receive--thus seeking we shall find--thus knocking it shall be opened to us.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:8
Where It Points
— the same pattern elsewhere in ScriptureBut the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”The publican's short, honest prayer answered — not the Pharisee's long, confident one.
The Pharisee and the publican run the same test Matthew 6 sets up. One man prays standing, confident, and at length, listing his own merits before God; the other manages seven words and will not even lift his eyes. Jesus says the second man “went down to his house justified rather than the other” — length and posture settle nothing; honesty before the Father does.
Closing
Nothing here tells a disciple to stop praying in church, or to stop praying with others out loud. It tells him to check who he is actually talking to. A Father who already knows what you need before you ask does not need to be informed, impressed, or worn down — He needs to be trusted enough to talk to honestly, behind a shut door or in the middle of a crowd.