And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. This whole passage follows naturally the Lord's own formula of prayer.
The teaching contained in Luke 11:1-13 may be well summarized as the Master's lesson on prayer. The disciples, when they heard Jesus pray, asked him to instruct them in the holy art. The Lord then suggested to them a series of short subjects for constant prayer, and further gave them words in which they could embody these subjects, and then proceeded to press upon them that this constant seeking help from God should never be interrupted; no discouragements were ever to prevent their praying.
"See," said the Master, "this" (telling them the little parable) "is what God appears to be when prayer receives no answer." Of course, he is not what he appears to be (see Luke 11:9). The truth concerning God does not really come out before the words of Luke 11:9; but the parable, grotesque and quaint, and picturing a common scene of everyday life, arrested the attention then as it has done in many a million cases since, and told men out of heart and despairing of receiving any answer to their prayers, to think.
Well, here is a case in point; but is God like this? The Lord replies shortly to this mute heart-query. At midnight. The whole picture is drawn from a poor man's house—children and parents sleeping in one room.
"With me in bed" probably suggests what is common in an Eastern house, where a divan or raised platform (rendered here "bed") often filled well-nigh half the room. The hour midnight has nothing strained in it—it was frequently the practice in the East to travel by night, and so to escape the great heat of the day.