I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. — The thought may naturally have come to their minds that they would be most effectually kept from the hatred and danger of which He had spoken if they were to be with Him taken out of the world. But there is for them a work in the world (John 17:18; John 17:24). He has finished the work His Father gave Him to do; He has glorified the Father on the earth (John 17:4). There is a work for them to glorify Him (John 17:10), and He prays not that they should be taken out of the world before their work is done. The Christian ideal is not freedom from work, but strength to do it; not freedom from temptation, but power to overcome it; not freedom from suffering, but joy in an abiding sense of the Father’s love; not absence from the world, but grace to make the world better for our presence; not holy lives driven from the world, and living apart from it, but holy lives spent in the world and leavening it.
But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. — Comp. Note on Matthew 6:13. The usage of St. John is, beyond question, in favour of the masculine. The only other passages where he uses the word in the singular are 1 John 2:13-14; 1 John 3:12; 1 John 5:18-19. We have to bear in mind also that the present passage occurs in the second “Lord’s Prayer,” and that His prayer for them may with probability be interpreted in the same sense as the words in which He taught them to pray. On the whole, therefore, it seems likely, but yet is by no means certain, that we ought to read here, “that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one.”