He went out into a mountain to pray. — Better, into the mountain, or, the hill-country. The stress laid on the prayers of Jesus is again characteristic of St. Luke.
Continued all night in prayer to God. — The original, at least, admits of another rendering. The word translated “prayer” (proseuchè) had come to be applied to the place dedicated to prayer — the chapel or oratory by the river-side, or on the mountain-side, where there was a running stream available for ablutions, to which devout Jews could retire for their devotions. Such a proseuchè there seems to have been at Philippi (Acts 16:13). Another is named at Halicarnassus. Such, the language of Roman poets (in quâ te quœro proseuchâ, Juvenal, Sat. iii. 296) shows us, there were at Rome. The fact mentioned by Josephus that there was one near Tiberias (Life, c. 54) shows that they were not unknown in Galilee. The precise combination of words — literally, in the prayer of God — is not found elsewhere for prayer as offered to God.