This third question adds one more everyday picture to make the point unmistakable. A child asks for an egg; would any father hand him a scorpion instead? The answer is plainly no. Jesus stacks these questions so His disciples feel the absurdity of imagining a loving father being cruel, and so they will apply it to God (Luke 11:13). Gill says the design of the parable of the friend at midnight (Luke 11:5-8) is "to show the force of importunity," and these questions explain why asking is safe.

No one answers aloud, because the answer is obvious. Jesus gives the conclusion Himself: "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?" (Luke 11:13).

Why pair an egg with a scorpion? Barnes quotes a writer named Dr. Thomson, who says the ordinary black scorpion looks nothing like an egg, but that "old writers speak of a white scorpion," which with its tail folded up could resemble a small egg. Barnes also reports that Pliny, an ancient writer, said the scorpions of Judea were about the size of an egg. Gill reports that, it is said, a scorpion put into an empty eggshell was sometimes given to a person whose death was wanted.

Either way, the scorpion was a real danger. Just before this, Jesus had told the seventy that He gave them power "to tread on serpents and scorpions" (Luke 10:19). The picture is of a father handing his child something that looks like food but would hurt him.

Only Luke records this third question; Matthew's account has bread and stone and fish and serpent (Matthew 7:9-10). Together the three pictures cover the simple food a child might ask for, and in each case the father would never give what wounds.

That is the heart of Jesus' teaching on prayer in Luke 11. The Father is not a reluctant friend behind a shut door (Luke 11:7) and not a deceiver who gives harm dressed up as help. He is the giver of good gifts, and Jesus will name the best of them in Luke 11:13: the Holy Spirit.