What Does Luke 11:7 Mean in the King James?
And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.
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 friend names the cost of getting up as an impossibility, and the next line shows that this boundary can move.
THE MEANING
A closed door can make a need sound like an unreasonable interruption: the speaker counts the sleeping children, the settled household, and the effort of rising. The answer sounds final, but the story is still moving; in the next line, he rises and gives.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A first “I cannot” does not prove the request is impossible or the answer final; the next verse says the man rises when the asking continues.
THE ROOT
ἀναστῆναι
anastēnai
GROWS FROM
στη- (stē-), from ἵστημι (histēmi)
Stand; set in place.
Here, rising means the bodily act of standing up, and the same verb appears in the next verse when the man does get up. Its word family also includes ἀνάστασις (anastasis), “a rising” or “resurrection”; the sense here remains physical, while the shared root makes “rise” and “be raised” kin.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: Stand up, rise
ἀνίστημι
This is the verb family behind the act the man says he cannot do, and then does in verse 8.
anastasis: A rising, resurrection
ἀνάστασις
It carries the same standing-up root into the language of being raised.
κόπους
kopous
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
kop-
Toil, labor, weariness.
The Greek noun κόπους (kopous) refers to labor or trouble that wears on a person. The refusal frames getting up as costly effort, then calls that cost an inability.
ALSO GROWS
kopos: Toil, labor, hardship
κόπος
This is the noun in “Trouble me not”; it makes the burden of responding concrete.
kopiaō: Labor, toil, grow weary
κοπιάω
This related verb shows the same word family describing work that exhausts.
κέκλεισται
kekleistai
GROWS FROM
κλει- (klei-), from κλείω (kleio)
Shut, close.
The form presents the door as having been shut and remaining shut, so the boundary sounds settled. The same chapter later uses κλεῖς (kleis), “key,” for the key of knowledge; closure and what can open it belong to the same word family.
ALSO GROWS
kleio: Shut, close
κλείω
This is the verb behind the door’s settled state.
kleis: Key, bolt
κλεῖς
Luke 11:52 uses this related word for the “key of knowledge,” linking a shut boundary with a means of opening.
THE PATTERN
A request can persist through resistance or delay until a response comes.
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.THE THREAD
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.Verse 8 repeats the verb translated “rise” here: the same man who says he cannot stand up is then said to get up and provide. That makes “I cannot” the tension of the story, not its final word.
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