What Does Luke 11:11 Mean in the King James?
If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The father’s goodness appears in refusing to replace nourishment with harm.
THE MEANING
When you ask for what sustains you, this verse presents a father’s care as fitting the need rather than answering with its harmful opposite. Its paired images make the distinction concrete: bread is not stone, and fish is not a serpent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the fear that the one you ask for care will answer your need with harm disguised as a gift.
THE ROOT
ἐπιδώσει
epidōsei
GROWS FROM
δο-
do-
give, grant
“give” in this verse is epidōsei. The same compound verb names both imagined harmful answers: the contrast lies in what is given, not in the act of giving. Its word family links giving with gift, showing that a good answer fits the need rather than merely handing something over.
ALSO GROWS
didōmi: to give, grant
δίδωμι
This is the base verb in the word used for giving the stone or serpent; the same act can carry a fitting gift or a harmful substitute.
dosis: a giving, a gift
δόσις
This related noun holds giving and gift together, illuminating the verse’s focus on the quality of what the father gives.
THE PATTERN
A caring giver answers need with what is good rather than withholding it or substituting harm.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?THE THREAD
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?The next verse makes the comparison explicit: even human fathers know how to give good gifts, and the heavenly Father gives the Set-Apart Breath to those who ask. It carries the contrast from bread and fish to the Father’s own life-giving gift.
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