Koheleth warns against thoughtless words or hasty professions in prayer, which formed another feature of popular religion. Be not rash with thy mouth. The warning is against hasty and thoughtless words in prayer, words that go from the lips with glib facility, but come not from the heart.
Thus our Lord bids those who pray not to use vain repetitions ( μὴ βαττολογήσατε), as the heathen, who think to be heard for their much speaking (Matthew 6:7). Jesus himself used the same words in his prayer in the garden, and he continually urges the lesson of much and constant prayer—a lessen enforced by apostolic admonitions (see Luke 11:5, etc.
; Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17); but it is quite possible to use the same words, and yet throw the whole heart into them each time that they are repeated. Whether the repetition is vain or not depends upon the spirit of the person who prays.
Let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God. We should weigh well our wishes, arrange them discreetly, ponder whether they are such as we can rightly make subjects of petition, ere we lay them in words before the Lord.
"Before God" may mean in the temple, the house of God, where he is specially present, as Solomon himself testified (1 Kings 8:27, 1 Kings 8:30, 1 Kings 8:43). God is in heaven. The infinite distance between God and man, illustrated by the contrast of earth and the illimitable heaven, is the ground of the admonition to reverence and thoughtfulness (comp.
Psalms 115:3, Psalms 115:16; Isaiah 4:1-6:8, 9; Isaiah 66:1). Therefore let thy words be few, as becomes one who speaks in the awful presence of God. Ben-Sira seems to have had this passage in mind when he writes (Ecclesiasticus 7:14), "Prate not in a multitude of elders, and repeat not ( μὴ δευτερώσης) the word in prayer."
We may remember the conduct of the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:26). Ginsburg and Wright quote the Talmudic precept ('Beraehoth,' 68. a), "Let the words of a man always be few in the presence of God, according as it is written," and then follows the passage in our text.