Prayed the third time - So St. Paul - I besought the Lord Thrice that it might depart from me, 2-Corinthians 12:8. This thrice repeating the same petition argues deep earnestness of soul.

And he left them, and went away again,.... At some little distance from them; they being so overpowered with sleep, that he could have no conversation with them:
and prayed the third time; as the Apostle Paul did, when under temptation, he prayed thrice that it might depart from him, 2-Corinthians 12:8,
saying the same words: the Arabic version renders it, "in the words which he before expressed"; and Munster's Hebrew Gospel reads, "he said the same prayer"; not in the selfsame words, or in the express form he had before delivered it; for it is certain, that his second prayer is not expressed in the same form of words as the first: but the sense is, that he prayed to the same purpose; the matter and substance of his prayer was the same, namely, that he might be exempted from suffering; but if that could not be admitted of, he was desirous to be resigned to the will of his heavenly Father, and was determined to submit unto it.

He prayed the third time, saying the same words. The fact is suggestive as indicating that there is a repetition in prayer which indicates not formalism, but intensity of feeling.