What Does Luke 11:13 Mean?
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?
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
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 KEY
The Father’s greatest gift is the Set-Apart Breath itself, the life that human hands cannot give.
THE MEANING
Even within your limited goodness, you know how to give what is good to your children; the Father’s giving exceeds that measure. What the Father gives to those who ask is the Set-Apart Breath, God’s living breath among them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Your flaws disqualify you from receiving anything good from God.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pnéō
To blow or breathe.
The Greek word translated “Spirit” also means breath and wind, holding together what English separates. Here, the Father’s gift is the Set-Apart Breath: life from God, given to those who ask.
ALSO GROWS
pneuma: Breath, wind, or spirit.
πνεῦμα
This is the word for the gift in the verse; its range lets the breath within “Spirit” come into view.
pnoē: Breath or blast.
πνοή
This related word shows the same breathing root at work in another Greek word for breath.
δώσει
dōsei
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give or grant.
“give” in this verse is dōsei. The verse uses the same verb for people giving gifts to their children and for the Father giving the Set-Apart Breath. The comparison turns on how much more the Father gives, not on a different kind of generosity.
ALSO GROWS
dōma: Gift.
δόμα
The verse uses its plural form for the good gifts parents give, placing human gifts beside the Father’s greater gift.
dosis: Giving or gift.
δόσις
This related word names the act and result of giving, echoing the verse’s movement from asking to receiving.
THE PATTERN
God gives life and goodness from above, with breath itself as a gift.
The breath of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive.And when he had said this, he breathed into them, and said to them, Take in the Set-Apart Breath.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.THE THREAD
And when he had said this, he breathed into them, and said to them, Take in the Set-Apart Breath.Both verses name the gift with πνεῦμα (pneuma), meaning breath, wind, or spirit. John sets that same word beside an act of breathing, bringing the breath within Luke’s gift into view.
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