And it came to pass... — St. Luke, it will be noted, omits the narrative of our Lord’s walking on the water, of the feeding of the Four Thousand, of the Syro-Phœnician woman, and of the teaching as to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We cannot get beyond a conjectural explanation of these phenomena, but it is possible that, as a matter of fact, he simply did not learn these facts in the course of his inquiries, and therefore did not insert them. As far as it goes, the fact suggests the inference that he had not seen the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark in the form in which we now have them. On the narrative that follows (Luke 9:18-27), see Notes on Matthew 16:13-28; Mark 8:27; Mark 9:1.
As he was alone praying. — There is, as before (see Introduction, and Notes on Luke 3:21; Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12), something characteristic in the stress which St. Luke lays on the fact. It is as though he saw in what follows the result of the previous prayer.