Luke 22:68

Study note

Setting — Jesus addresses the Jewish council during His trial. He speaks this line immediately after stating that telling them His identity would not produce belief.

The words — ἐρωτήσω (erōtēsō) translates literally to "I shall ask," and ἀποκριθῆτε (apokrithēte) means "you shall answer." The Greek construction uses a first-class conditional (ἐὰν) to declare a certain future reality rather than a hypothetical scenario.

The thread — Jesus employs the identical rhetorical question structure in Luke 20:3 when confronting the chief priests. The pattern of unresponsive inquiry also appears in Luke 20:41 during the debate over the Messiah's Davidic sonship.

Why it lands — The text states that spiritual questioning without prior receptivity yields no answer. It requires the reader to distinguish between questions designed to trap and questions intended to reveal.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.