Jesus asks this to settle the matter for His hearers: if they would never fail their children, God will never fail His. Gill calls it an argument "from the lesser to the greater." If imperfect fathers give good gifts, the Father in heaven, "who is omniscient and omnipotent," in Gill's words, will surely do more. Jesus does not flatter His hearers. He calls them "evil," and Gill takes this as true of all people by nature. Yet even so, they know how to love their children. The question presses them to stop doubting God's goodness and to ask.

The question carries its own answer: the Father will "give good things to them that ask him" (Matthew 7:11). No reply from the hearers is recorded. Luke records the same saying with a different ending: "how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:13). When the sermon ended, "the people were astonished at his doctrine" (Matthew 7:28).

"Being evil" translates ponēroi ontes. The participle is present tense, describing what the hearers are, not just something they once did. "How much more" is posō mallon, the words that carry the whole argument from human fathers to God.

Gill says the "good things" are "not only temporal good things, as meat, drink, and clothing" but every spiritual good as well. Luke's account names the greatest of these gifts: "the Holy Spirit" (Luke 11:13).

This question shows God as a Father who loves to give. Throughout the sermon, Jesus calls God "your Father," and He has already told His hearers that "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (Matthew 6:32). Here He goes further: the Father not only knows, He gives. Matthew Henry puts it simply: "God is wise, infinitely so; he knows what we need, what we desire, and what is fit for us."

The question also keeps God's goodness and our condition side by side. Jesus calls His hearers "evil" and still promises them good things. God's gifts do not depend on our being good. They flow from His being good.