And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. My children are with me in bed - Or, I and my children are in bed; this is Bishop Pearce's translation, and seems to some preferable to the common one. See a like form of speech in 1 Corinthians 16:11, and in Ephesians 3:18. However, we may conceive that he had his little children, τα παιδια, in bed with him; and this heightened the difficulty of yielding to his neighbor's request.
But if he persevere knocking. (At si ille perseveraverit pulsans). This sentence is added to the beginning of Luke 11:8, by the Armenian, Vulgate, four copies of the Itala, Ambrose, Augustin, and Bede. On these authorities (as I find it in no Greek MS). I cannot insert it as a part of the original text; but it is necessarily implied; for, as Bishop Pearce justly observes, unless the man in the parable be represented as continuing to solicit his friend, he could not possibly be said to use importunity: once only to ask is not to be importunate.