What Does Luke 11:12 Mean?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?THE KEY
The thing placed into the child’s hands reveals whether the giver’s answer carries care or danger.
THE MEANING
An egg can nourish, while a scorpion can wound: the child’s request makes the difference plain. A caring father does not turn that need into a threat. The next verse extends this image to your heavenly Father and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the fear that the one you depend on will disguise harm as an answer to your need.
THE ROOT
ἐπιδώσει
epidōsei
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give, grant, or put into someone’s hands.
The Greek verb translated “offer” is built on δίδωμι, “to give.” The same act of giving can place nourishment or danger in someone’s hands, so the verse makes the giver’s care visible through what is given.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: To hand over, entrust, or deliver.
παραδίδωμι
It shows the root’s sense of placing something into another’s hands, the action at the heart of the egg-or-scorpion question.
apodidōmi: To give back, render, or repay.
ἀποδίδωμι
It shows that giving can answer a prior claim; here the father’s response answers the child’s request.
THE PATTERN
Trustworthy giving answers need with what sustains rather than with what wounds.
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those who ask him?Every good giving and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting and no shadow cast by turning.He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also favor us with all things along with him?THE THREAD
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from the heavens give the Set-Apart Breath to those who ask him?The word translated “offer” here and “give” in the next verse share the root δίδωμι, “to give.” The contrast resolves in the next verse: the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
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