Luke 11:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Luke 11:8
I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — genitive singular masculine
importunity
ἀναίδειαanaídeia
G335
impudence
he will rise
ἐγερθεὶςegertheis
G1453
to waken (transitively or intransitively) · verb — aorist passive participle, nominative singular masculine
and give
δίδωμιdídōmi
G1325
to give (used in a very wide application
him
αὐτῷautō
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — dative singular masculine
as many as
ὅσωνhosōn
G3745
as (much · correlative pronoun — genitive plural masculine
he needeth
χρῄζει.chrēzei
G5535
to make (i.e. have) necessity · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 32:26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
Luke 18:1-8 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Romans 15:30 Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your praye…
Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and…
Matthew 15:22-28 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daug…
2 Corinthians 12:8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
Colossians 2:1 For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Luke 11:1-13
Prayer is one of the great laws of natural religion. That man is a brute, is a monster, that never prays, that never gives glory to his Maker, nor feels his favour, nor owns his dependence upon him. One great design therefore of Christianity is to assist us in prayer, to enforce the duty upon us, to instruct us in it, and encourage us to expect advantage by it. Now here,
I. We find Christ himself praying in a certain place, probably where he used to pray, Luk 11:1. As God, he was prayed to; as man, he prayed; and, though he was a Son, yet learned he this obedience. This evangelist has taken particular notice of Christ's praying often, more than any other of the evangelists: when he was bapti…
importunity--The word is a strong one--"shamelessness"; persisting in the face of all that seemed reasonable, and refusing to take a denial.
as many, &c.--His reluctance once overcome, all the claims of friendship and necessity are felt to the full. The sense is obvious: If the churlish and self-indulgent--deaf both to friendship and necessity--can after a positive refusal, be won over, by sheer persistency, to do all that is needed, how much more may the same determined perseverance in prayer be expected to prevail with Him whose very nature is "rich unto all that call upon Him" (Rom 10:12).
Adam Clarke on Luke 11:7
My children are with me in bed - Or, I and my children are in bed; this is Bishop Pearce's translation, and seems to some preferable to the common one. See a like form of speech in Co1 16:11, and in Eph 3:18. However, we may conceive that he had his little children, τα παιδια, in bed with him; and this heightened the difficulty of yielding to his neighbor's request.
But if he persevere knocking. (At si ille perseveraverit pulsans). This sentence is added to the beginning of Luk 11:8, by the Armenian, Vulgate, four copies of the Itala, Ambrose, Augustin, and Bede. On these authorities (as I find it in no Greek MS). I cannot insert it as a part of the original text; but it is necessarily impli…
(Const. Mon. c. 1.) For perhaps He delays purposely, to redouble your earnestness and coming to him, and that you may know what the gift of God is, and may anxiously guard what is given. For whatever a man acquires with much pains he strives to keep safe, lest with the loss of that he should lose his labour likewise.
It is the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles, which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as a stranger, but, as He says, "because of his importunity." Importunate, however, the recent god could not have permitted any one to be in the short time (since his appearance).
And if he persists in knocking, I tell you, even if he will not give him rising because he is his friend, still because of his impudence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. And I tell you: Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. It is a comparison from the lesser. For if a human friend rises from bed and gives not out of friendship but compelled by weariness, how much more will God give, who grants generously without weariness what is asked? But He wishes to be asked so that those who seek may be made capable of His gifts. Therefore, so that the friend arriving from the journey does not perish from hunger, that is, so that a soul recently recovering from its vanity of error does not languish in spiritual desire for want, let us ask for the feast of the word by which it may be nourished, let us seek the friend who gives, let us knock on the door where the hidden things are kept. For He who promises does not deceive, and has given and gives great hope.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Prayer · Should be offered up: With importunity — Should be offered up: With importunity
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Luke 11:8
I say unto you,.... This is the accommodation of the parable; to these words are premised, in the Vulgate Latin version, the following, "if he continue knocking":
though he will not rise and give him, because he is a friend; though mere friendship will not influence and engage him to rise from his bed, at such an unseasonable time, and fulfil the request of his friend;
yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth: as he asks for, or more, if necessary: the design of this parable, is the same with that of the widow and the unjust judge, in Luke 18:1 which is to show the force of importunity, where friendship, as here, and the fear of God, and regard of men…
Luke 11:5-13
Matthew 7:7-11
Luke 11:5-13
7. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. 8. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9. Is there any man among you, who, if his son shall ask bread, will give him a ston? 10. Or if he shall ask a fish, does he offer him a serpent? 11. If you, then, though you are evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good things, if you ask them from him?
5. And he saith to them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him, Friend,…
because of your shameless persistence (or in order to avoid shame, or so his reputation won’t be damaged): Shame would also lie on the man who didn’t want to get up, since hospitality was a community requirement. God protects his good name by providing for his people.
