{"id":2977,"date":"2014-01-01T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=2977"},"modified":"2025-06-26T12:32:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T18:32:04","slug":"matthew-1521-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=2977","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 15:21-28"},"content":{"rendered":"

21\u00a0Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

22\u00a0And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, \u201cHave mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

23\u00a0But He answered her not a word.\u00a0And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, \u201cSend her away, for she cries out after us.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

24\u00a0But He answered and said,\u00a0\u201cI was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

25\u00a0Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, \u201cLord, help me!\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

26\u00a0But He answered and said,\u00a0\u201cIt is not good to take the children\u2019s bread and throw\u00a0it\u00a0to the little dogs.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

27\u00a0And she said, \u201cYes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters\u2019 table.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

28\u00a0Then Jesus answered and said to her,\u00a0\u201cO woman, great\u00a0is\u00a0your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.\u201d\u00a0And her daughter was healed from that very hour.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

Tyre and Sidon (v.21) \u2014 Along the coast northwest of the Sea of Galilee \u2014 outside Herod’s jurisdiction. This is the only recorded instance during His ministry when the Lord left Palestine.<\/h3>\n

woman of Canaan (v.22) \u2014 Mark 7:26<\/span><\/a> says she was Greek (meaning Gentile), a Syro-Phoenician by birth.<\/h3>\n

send her away (v.23) \u2014 Based on the way Jesus responds (in v.24), it is probable that the disciples were urging Him to give her what she wanted so she would go away.<\/h3>\n

dogs (v.26) = little dogs, pets<\/h3>\n

Most of my commentaries explain this passage with some ideas that make sense to me, but none of them paint the whole picture, so I’ll summarized in my own words.<\/h3>\n

Jesus came as the Messiah of Israel. His ministry was only to the Jews. When this Gentile woman approached Him as the Son of David, she had no claim on Him. She was one of those who were\u00a0… without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/em> On this basis, He said nothing.<\/h3>\n

When the disciples asked Him (probably) to give her what she wanted so they could be rid of her, He explained,\u00a0\u201cI was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel\u201d (v.24).\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

She asked Him again to help her daughter, this time dropping her claim. He again explained the higher position of Israel,\u00a0\u201cIt is not good to take the children\u2019s bread and throw\u00a0it\u00a0to the little dogs\u201d (v.26).<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

She then asked a third time, and this time she worded her request in such a way that Jesus could grant her request.\u00a0\u201cYes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters\u2019 table.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

The word “masters'” is plural. She wasn’t referring to Him as her master but to those who were fed at the table \u2014 the Jews. She had come to the understanding that her blessing could only come through Israel.<\/h3>\n

This is where my commentaries miss the point, in my opinion. This experience wasn’t given to us to show that salvation was about to be taken from Israel and given to the Gentiles. The Lord was still teaching the kingdom message. A major point of that kingdom message is that the nations will be blessed through<\/em> Israel. This passage underlines that point exactly.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21\u00a0Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22\u00a0And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, \u201cHave mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2977"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9277,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977\/revisions\/9277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}