If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father,.... Our Lord illustrates and confirms what he had said before by an instance common among men: the relation between a father and a son is natural, and it is very near; and it is usual for a son, when hungry, and at the proper times of meals, to ask bread of his father: and when he does, will he give him a stone? should he do so, he would show that his heart was as hard, or harder than the stone he gives: or if he ask a fish, will he, for a fish, give him a serpent? And endeavour to deceive him by the likeness of the one to the other, especially some sort of fish, which would poison or sting him, but not refresh and nourish him: such inhuman brutish parents are not surely to be found; See Gill on Mat 7:9, Mat 7:10.