Luke 11:12

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:5-13 Christ encourages fervency and constancy in prayer. We must come for what we need, as a man does to his neighbour or friend, who is kind to him. We must come for bread; for that which is needful. If God does not answer our prayers speedily, yet he will in due time, if we continue to pray. Observe what to pray for; we must ask for the Holy Spirit, not only as necessary in order to our praying well, but as all spiritual blessings are included in that one. For by the influences of the Holy Spirit we are brought to know God and ourselves, to repent, believe in, and love Christ, and so are made comfortable in this world, and meet for happiness in the next. All these blessings our heavenly Father is more ready to bestow on every one that asks for them, than an indulgent parent is to give food to a hungry child. And this is the advantage of the prayer of faith, that it quiets and establishes the heart in God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

"A scorpion" See the notes at Luke 10:19. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 379) says: "There is no imaginable likeness between an egg and the ordinary black scorpion of this country, neither in color nor size, nor, when the tail is extended, in shape; but old writers speak of a "white" scorpion, and such a one, with the tail folded up, as in specimens of fossil trilobites, would not look unlike a small egg. Perhaps the contrast, however, refers only to the different properties of the egg and the scorpion, which is sufficiently emphatic."

Pliny ("N. H.," xi. 25) says that in Judea the scorpions are about the size of an egg, and not unlike one in shape.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9-13. (See on [1634]Mt 7:7-11.)

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 11:11"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion.... Of which there are three sorts; some are terrestrial, or land scorpions, scorpions of the earth, a kind of serpents, very venomous and mischievous, to whom the wicked Jews are compared, Ezekiel 2:6 and the locusts in Revelation 9:3 others are airy, or flying scorpions, a sort of fowl; and others are sea scorpions; of the fish kind: it is not easy to say which of them is here meant. There is an herb which is called (n), "the scorpion": it leaves are like unto a scorpion, as the Jewish commentators say (o). This is observed with the same view as the former. By it may be meant here, either the fish that is so called, since a fish is mentioned before; or rather, the land scorpion, which is of the serpent kind; this brings forth little worms, in the form of eggs, as (p) Pliny says: and it is said, that a scorpion put into an empty eggshell, has been used to be given to persons, whose death has been desired; which it bursting from, at once strikes and kills: but what father would do so to a child!

(n) Misn. Erubin, c. 2. sect. 6. (o) Maimon. & Bartonora in lb, (p) Lib. 11. c. 25.

Geneva Study Bible

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 11:12. Ἢ καὶ, or even) His confidence in asking is increased.—ὠὸν, an egg) The requests of the children proceed on from necessaries to what are more of luxuries than necessaries: yet not only the bread, but the fish also, and the egg, are not denied.—σκόρπιον, a scorpion) which is a most deadly reptile.

Luke 11:12