Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Ver. 24. Hitherto ye have asked nothing] To what ye should have asked, and might have obtained. Prayer, as those arrows of deliverance, should be multiplied, 1 Kings 13:19; the more often we come to God the better welcome; neither can we anger him worse than to be soon said or sated. It was more troublesome to Severus the emperor to be asked nothing than to give much: Molestius erat ei nihil peti, quam dare. When any of his courtiers had not made bold with him he would call him, and say, Quid est cur nihit petis &c., What meanest thou to ask me nothing? So Christ here.
Ask, that your joy may be full] Pray, that ye may joy. Draw water with joy out of this well of salvation. David was excellent at this. His, heart was often more out of tune than his harp. He prays, and then cries, "Return to thy rest, O my soul." In many of his Psalms the beginnings, are full of trouble, as Psalams 6, 22, and 51 but by that time he prayed a while, the ends are full of joy and assurance, so that one would imagine saith Peter Moulin, that those Psalms had been composed by two men of a contrary humour Hudson the martyr, deserted at the stake, went from under the chain; and having prayed earnestly, was comforted immediately, and suffered valiantly.