Luke 11:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

As he was praying— While Jesus was in the country beyond Jordan, he happened to pray publicly with such fervency, that one of his disciples, exceedingly affected both with the matter and manner of his address, begged that he would teach them to pray. This disciple probably had not been present, when our Lord, in the beginning of his ministry, gave his hearers directions concerning their devotions. Wherefore Jesus, who always rejoiced to find his hearers desirous of instruction, willinglyembraced this opportunity, and repeated the discourse on prayer, which he had formerly delivered in his sermon on the mount; but with this difference, that he now handled the arguments which he had offered as motives to the duty, a little more fully than before. Many learned men suppose, that the Jewish masters used to give their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. John the Baptist had probably done this; in which view only we can suppose the disciples could now ask Jesus to teach them to pray; for it is not to be thought, that, in the three preceding years of his ministry, he had not often given them instructions both as to the matter and manner of prayer.