Luke11chapter 11

Luke 11:1

teach us to pray: One of his disciples asks him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples, naming the Baptist’s own school of piety as the pattern already known to them. The request comes because they have watched him pray again and again, at his baptism, before choosing the twelve, and they sense that his praying is unlike theirs. Luke places the lesson exactly where a disciple would ask it, after seeing it rather than after hearing a theory about it.

Luke 11:2

Our Father which art in heaven sets the whole prayer inside sonship before a single petition is asked, and Hallowed be thy name puts God’s own honor first. Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth join the reign of God to the doing of it, so that the two requests are one hope stated twice. The commentators note Luke’s form is shorter than Matthew’s fuller version in the Sermon on the Mount, and the manuscripts themselves divide over how much of the longer wording belongs to Luke’s own text, a textual question named honestly rather than resolved by assertion.

Luke 11:3-4

Give us day by day our daily bread asks for sufficiency, not surplus, and the commentators weigh the disputed word behind daily, epiousios, a term so rare in Greek that the fathers themselves debated whether it means bread for today or bread for the coming day. Forgive us our sins follows on the same daily footing, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us, tying the asking to a life already forgiving rather than to a private plea alone. Lead us not into temptation asks not to be brought to the test past what grace will carry, and deliver us from evil closes the appeal with the evil one himself, not evil in the abstract.

Luke 11:5-7

Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight opens a scenario every hearer in an agrarian village would recognize, borrowing bread for an unexpected guest being a plain social duty, not a favor. The traveler’s claim, a friend of mine is come to me, states the obligation driving the request, and the neighbor’s refusal, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed, is not unkindness but the ordinary friction of a one room house at night. The parable’s force gathers before its point is stated, for the man’s asking is already reasonable and the answer already withheld, setting up the turn the next verse supplies.

Luke 11:8

Because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth locates the parable’s whole argument in one word, importunity, the shameless persistence of a man who will not be turned from the door. The commentators are careful that the neighbor is not a picture of God’s reluctance, for the parable argues from the lesser to the greater: if bare persistence moves a sleepy and unwilling man, how much more will asking move a Father who is neither. The point is not that prayer wears God down but that prayer ought not to give up, the same lesson Luke draws again in the parable of the unjust judge.

Luke 11:9-10

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you states the same promise three times over in three verbs of rising urgency, asking, seeking, knocking, each naming a fuller measure of earnestness. Verse ten restates the promise as a general rule rather than a single instance, every one that asketh receiveth, so that the pattern just given in the friend at midnight is generalized to every praying person, not left as one man’s exception. The tense of each verb in the Greek is continuous, asking and keeping on asking, which the commentators take as the same importunity commended in verse eight now put into a rule.

Luke 11:11-12

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone moves the argument from a reluctant neighbor to an ordinary parent, whose instinct runs the opposite way from refusal. Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent, and Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion pair each request with a counterfeit that resembles it, a stone shaped like the small round loaves of the day and a scaleless eel resembling a fish, so the danger is a trap rather than an obvious substitution. Human fathers, however flawed, do not hand their children harm disguised as help, and the whole comparison exists to carry the reader to the next verse’s how much more.

Luke 11:13

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children states plainly that even fallen human love gets this much right, which makes the how much more that follows an argument from the lesser case to the greater rather than a leap of sentiment. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him names the best gift in the Father’s hand as the Spirit himself, not merely a Spirit given blessing, and Matthew’s parallel has good things where Luke has the Holy Spirit by name. The commentators across the centuries hear here a standing invitation to ask specifically for the Spirit’s presence and working, and this site reads the verse at its full and plain force, the Father’s best gift given to praying children.

Luke 11:14

He was casting out a devil, and it was dumb states the affliction by its effect, a spirit that silenced its host, and the healing is proved by the same measure, the dumb spake. The people wondered names an honest astonishment before any hostile explanation was offered, the plain response of onlookers who had simply watched a mute man begin to talk. Luke sets the miracle first and lets the two reactions that follow, verses fifteen and sixteen, answer it in opposite directions, one crowd amazed and another already looking for an accusation.

Luke 11:15-16

He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils is an accusation that does not deny the miracle, for the enemies of Jesus never claim the dumb man is still dumb, only that the power comes from the wrong source. Beelzebub, a name mocking a Philistine god of Ekron, lord of the flies, had by this time become a common Jewish name for the prince of demons, and the charge trades on the real danger of demonic counterfeit rather than inventing one. Others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven ask for something grander than an exorcism, a sign in the sky such as the rabbis debated whether even a true prophet could supply, and both responses are answered together in what follows.

Luke 11:17-18

Every kingdom divided against itself: Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation states a principle of ordinary politics before Jesus applies it to the accusation just made against him. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand exposes the charge as self defeating, for casting out a demon is an act against Satan’s own interest, and no ruler funds his own overthrow. The logic is not a debating trick but a genuine argument from the nature of a kingdom, that a house at war with itself has already begun to fall, whatever house is meant.

Luke 11:19-20

And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out turns the accusation back on the accusers themselves, for Jewish exorcists were active in this period and the Pharisees did not call their own practice demonic. Therefore shall they be your judges leaves the accusers condemned by their own standard, applied unevenly to Jesus and withheld from their own circle. But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you states the true source plainly, the finger of God echoing Exodus 8:19 where Pharaoh’s magicians named the same power before a greater one than their own, and the conclusion is that the kingdom’s arrival, not merely a wonder, stands in front of them.

Luke 11:21-22

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace pictures Satan’s hold as a fortified security, undisturbed precisely because unchallenged. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him answers the picture with an invasion that succeeds, the stronger taking the armour the strong man trusted and dividing the plunder. The parable states in image what the exorcism just performed states in fact, that a true kingdom conflict is underway and the outcome already runs one direction.

Luke 11:23

He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth states the sharpest possible either or, no neutral ground left standing before the claim Jesus has just made about his own authority over the demonic. The verse is often set beside Mark 9:40, he that is not against us is on our part, and the commentators resolve the apparent tension by context rather than contradiction: Mark’s word answers a disciple wary of an unauthorized worker doing real good in Jesus’ name, while Luke’s word answers open enemies actively working against him. Read in its own setting, the verse is Jesus’ verdict on the Beelzebub charge itself, that indifference toward him in the face of this miracle is already a side taken.

Luke 11:24-26

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest pictures the demon as restless once expelled, dry and waterless places being the traditional haunt of unclean spirits in Jewish thought. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself describes a return with reinforcement once the house is found swept and garnished, tidied but empty, cleaned of the old tenant but never occupied by a new one. The last state of that man is worse than the first is the warning the parable exists to deliver, that deliverance without a filling that follows leaves a vacancy more dangerous than the first affliction, and the commentators hear in it a rebuke aimed at the very generation listening, reformed in appearance and empty within.

Luke 11:27-28

A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and pronounces the oldest kind of praise a mother could receive, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked, honoring Mary through the honor due her son. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it does not refuse the honor so much as redirect where blessedness actually rests, not in physical relation to him but in obedient hearing. The same standard already named Mary herself blessed in the Magnificat’s own terms, so the correction raises rather than diminishes true discipleship as the higher honor open to every hearer, not only to his mother.

Luke 11:29-30

This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet answers the demand for a sign from heaven raised back in verse sixteen, and the sign named is a man, not a wonder in the sky. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation states the comparison, and the commentators divide over what carries the weight of the sign in Luke’s own telling: some read Jonah’s person and preaching alone, a foreign prophet whose bare word moved a pagan city to repent, others read Luke as assuming the fuller sign Matthew states outright, three days in the fish’s belly answered by three days in the tomb. Both readings agree the sign is Jesus himself set against Jonah, and that the comparison already condemns a generation that will not repent at a greater than Jonah’s preaching.

Luke 11:31-32

The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them recalls the Queen of Sheba traveling from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, a Gentile who traveled toward wisdom that this generation would not travel a step for. The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation pairs a Gentile queen who sought wisdom with Gentile men who repented at preaching, both witnesses called against a generation given more than either received. Behold, a greater than Solomon is here and a greater than Jonas is here name Jesus’ own person as exceeding both the wisest king and the most effective prophet Israel’s memory could supply, the comparison itself a claim about who he is.

Luke 11:33

No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick states an ordinary household fact as the ground for a spiritual one, a lamp existing to be seen by, not hidden from, whoever enters. That they which come in may see the light names the purpose plainly, and the saying returns a figure already used at 8:16 in a fresh setting, now following directly on the sign just given and the light that sign should shed. The commentators read the verse as Jesus’ comment on his own ministry, a light meant to be seen and not obscured by unbelief’s demand for something other than what has already been shown.

Luke 11:34

The light of the body is the eye states the ancient understanding of sight as the organ that lets light govern the whole frame, healthy or diseased. Therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light turns the physical fact into a spiritual one, single translating a Greek word meaning sound, clear, undivided in its aim, the opposite of the divided loyalty the next verses will press. But when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness names the same organ diseased, evil carrying its ordinary sense of grudging or covetous, so that a grasping inward disposition darkens the whole life it governs.

Luke 11:35-36

Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness warns that the very organ meant to admit light can itself go dark, a caution the commentators tie to spiritual self deception, a mind that calls its own darkness light and so trusts a broken instrument. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light restates the healthy case at its fullest extent, no shadowed corner left, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light, returning to the lamp of verse thirty three to close the train of sayings on one image. The passage as a whole moves from a sign demanded outwardly to a light that must first be right within, the true condition for seeing anything rightly at all.

Luke 11:37-38

A certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him, and Jesus goes, the same readiness to sit at a critic’s table that chapter seven already showed at Simon’s house. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner registers surprise rather than open accusation, the ceremonial hand washing of the Pharisaic tradition, unwritten law rather than the law of Moses itself, being violated in the host’s own house. Luke sets the scene plainly and lets the meal itself become the occasion for the woes that follow, the same pattern as the dinner in chapter fourteen where table fellowship opens onto teaching the guests did not expect.

Luke 11:39-41

Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness answers the surprise at verse thirty eight directly, naming the washing itself as a picture of a deeper failure, careful about the vessel’s surface and careless of the heart’s condition. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also presses the same Creator’s claim on both, the outward and the inward alike answerable to him, so that cleansing one while neglecting the other misreads what cleanliness is for. But rather give alms of such things as ye have, and, behold, all things are clean unto you offers the corrective, mercy toward others rather than ritual toward objects, and the commentators note the Greek behind such things as ye have can also be rendered what is within, so the remedy answers the disease at the very point it names.

Luke 11:42

Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs names a scrupulous obedience extended even to garden vegetables the law never specifically required, mint and rue among the smallest of produce. And pass over judgment and the love of God names what the same scrupulousness left undone, justice and love for God being the weightier matters the tithing zeal never touched. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone refuses to set the two against each other as if precision in small things were itself the fault, the woe falling on tithing herbs instead of doing justice, not on tithing herbs as such.

Luke 11:43

Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets names a second failure, not neglect of duty but love of recognition, the raised seats near the ark reserved for the honored and the elaborate public greetings that marked social rank. The commentators read the woe as aimed at motive more than position, for the seats and the greetings were not wrong in themselves, only the loving of them, the heart’s attachment to the honor rather than to the service the honor was meant to mark. The same fault returns in Matthew’s fuller version of these woes as a warning against seeking the praise of men above the praise of God.

Luke 11:44

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not turns to a picture every hearer would recognize as a serious danger, an unmarked tomb, since contact with a grave conveyed ceremonial defilement under the law. And the men that walk over them are not aware of them names the exact peril, contamination without warning, and the commentators draw out the point that these very teachers, meticulous about external washing in verse thirty nine, are themselves an unseen source of the defilement they claimed to guard against. The image reverses their own standard against them with precision, hidden corruption rather than visible cleanliness being their actual condition.

Luke 11:45-46

One of the lawyers said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also registers that the woes just spoken, though aimed at Pharisees, land on the scribes as well, the lawyers being the professional interpreters of the law rather than a party distinct in practice. Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne answers the objection by widening the charge rather than softening it, the burdens being the accumulated oral tradition of legal interpretation, minute and demanding. And ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers names the specific hypocrisy, imposing a weight of obligation the imposers themselves never bear, teachers who load without lifting.

Luke 11:47-48

Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them exposes an honor that is really complicity, monuments raised to men the builders’ own ancestors murdered. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers states the logic plainly, for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres, the building confirming rather than repenting of the killing, since it treats the prophets as safely dead rather than as living voices still to be heeded. The commentators read the irony as deliberate, honoring dead prophets being cheaper and safer than heeding living ones, and this generation about to prove the pattern again in its own treatment of the greatest prophet among them.

Luke 11:49-51

Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute is read by the commentators either as a citation of a now lost Jewish writing personifying wisdom, or as Jesus speaking of himself under that title, the wisdom of God incarnate announcing his own foreknown plan. That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation gathers the whole history of persecuted prophets into a single reckoning falling on the generation that has just proven itself their heirs in spirit. From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias spans the entire Hebrew canon by its own ordering, Genesis to Chronicles, Abel the first martyr and Zacharias the last named in that arrangement, so that the phrase means the whole record of righteous blood, not merely two isolated cases.

Luke 11:52

Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge names the gravest of the seven woes, for the lawyers’ calling was precisely to open the Scriptures to the people, and the charge is that they have locked what they were trusted to unlock. Ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered doubles the failure, neither receiving the truth themselves nor permitting others the access their office existed to provide. The commentators hear in the key an image reaching toward the keys later given in a very different sense in Matthew’s Gospel, the same picture of authority to open or shut used there for a very different result.

Luke 11:53-54

As he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things marks the meal’s turn from tense conversation into open hostility, the woes having done their work of exposing rather than persuading. Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him states their aim plainly, no longer merely offended but now hunting for a formal charge. The chapter that opened with a disciple’s request to be taught how to pray closes with teachers of the law plotting how to trap, the same house divided against itself named back in verse seventeen now visible in the room.