Jesus is not prohibiting lengthy prayers.1 As with his other examples and teachings elsewhere in his Sermon, he makes use of rhetorical overstatement to emphasize a particular point and for the sake of memorisation. Indeed, there are several prayers in the Bible that can be described as lengthy (Luke 6:12; Mark 1:35; Mark 6:46; Mark 14:35–42). What Jesus seeks to emphasize is that prayer is not some magical formula by which someone can manipulate God.2 Prayer must not be based on the assumption that God’s answer depends on the number of words that are used (Ecclesiastes 5:2) or the amount of time that is prayed.3
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.