Mark 7:24-30

C. THE THIRD PERIOD 7:24 to 9:50

1. THE SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN. 7:24-30

TEXT 7:24-30

And from thence he arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered into a house, and would have no man know it: and he could not be hid. But straightway a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of him, came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race. And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. And he said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. But she answered and saith unto him, Yea, Lord: even the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found the child laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 7:24-30

347.

From where was Jesus going to Tyre and Sidon?

348.

Why did Jesus want to be unknown?

349.

Give three facts about the woman who came to Jesus at this time.

350.

Who are the children in Mark 7:27who are the dogs?

351.

Explain the eating the crumbs under the table.

352.

What admirable qualities are seen in this woman?

353.

What other miracle did Jesus perform at a distance? Cf. Matthew 8:5-13.

COMMENT

TIMESummer A.D. 29.
PLACEIn the district of Tyre and Sidon.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTSMatthew 15:21-28.

OUTLINE1. Jesus and His disciples seeks seclusion, Mark 7:24. Mark 7:2. A distraught woman seeks help, Mark 7:25-26. Mark 7:3. Jesus tests her faith, Mark 7:27. Mark 7:4. She answers in faith and humility, Mark 7:28. Mark 7:5. Her request is granted, Mark 7:29-30.

ANALYSIS

I.

JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES SEEKS SECLUSION, Mark 7:24.

1.

Leaves Capernaum or near area.

2.

Into the district of Tyre and Sidon.

3.

Into a house to hide from the multitudes.

II.

A DISTRAUGHT WOMAN SEEKS, HELP, Mark 7:25-26.

1.

Came immediately upon their entrance into the house.

2.

Came seeking help for her demon-possessed daughter.

3.

Fell at his feet with continual requests.

4.

She was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race.

III.

JESUS TESTS HER FAITH, Mark 7:27.

1.

The children (Jews) must first be fed.

2.

It is not right to give the children's bread to dogs (Gentiles)

IV.

SHE ANSWERS IN FAITH AND HUMILITY, Mark 7:28.

1.

I agreeyou are right.

2.

But even dogs eat crumbs from the children's table.

V.

HER REQUEST IS GRANTED, Mark 7:29-30.

1.

Because of your faith and humility your request is grantedyour daughter is free.

2.

She went home to find it as He had said.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

I.

JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES SEEK SECLUSION, Mark 7:24

Thence, i.e. from the place where the foregoing words were uttered. But where was this? The last particular place mentioned was Gennesaret (Mark 6:53), but followed by a notice of his visiting that whole surrounding country (Mark 6:55), and entering into villages, cities, and fields (Mark 6:56.) This may seem to cut off the connection and prevent our ascertaining the locality referred to here. But as thence implies a definite place previously mentioned, and as the general statement in Mark 6:53-56 is incidentally and parenthetically introduced, and relates not so much to what occurred at any one time as to the general and constant practice, as appears from the use of the imperfect tense, it is still most probable that the reference is here to the land (or district) of Gennesaret, or to the neighboring city of Capernaum. Arising, standing up, an idiomatic phrase of frequent occurrence in the Greek of the New Testament, and often denoting nothing more than what we mean by starting, setting out, putting one's self in motion, especially though not exclusively in reference to journeys. Went, or more exactly went away, i.e. withdrew, retreated (Matthew 15:21), from the malice of his enemies, as some suppose, or as others, from the crowd and bustle even of his friends and followers, It is probable, however, that a higher and more important motive led to this retreat, to wit, the purpose to evince by one act of his public life that, though his personal ministry was to the Jews (see below, on Mark 7:27, and compare Matthew 15:24. Romans 15:8), his saving benefits were also for the Gentiles. It is important to remember that these movements were not made at random or fortuitously brought about, as infidel interpreters delight to represent, and some of their believing admirers do not venture to deny, but deliberately ordered in accordance with a definite design, the reality of which is not affected by our being able or unable everywhere to trace it in the history. Into (not merely to or towards, which would be otherwise expressed) the borders, a compounded form of the word used twice in Mark 7:31 below, and not applied like it to all contained within the bounds, but to the bounds themselves, in which specific sense it is employed by Xenophon, Thucydides, and Plato, who speaks of the bounds (or limits) of the philosopher and politician. The Greek word is properly an adjective, and means bordering or frontier parts (Matthew 15:21.) Tyre and Sidon, the two great seaports of Phenicia, put for the whole country, which apart from them had no importance. The whole phrase does not mean the region between Tyre and Sidon, but the boundary or frontier between Galilee and Phenicia. Would and could, as in so many other cases, are not mere auxiliary tenses, but distinct and independent verbs; he wished and he was able. The construction he was willing to know no one (i.e. to make no acquaintance or receive no visit), though grammatically possible, is not so natural or obvious as the common one, he wished no one to know (him), or to know (it), i.e. his arrival or his presence. To be hid, or lie concealed, the Greek verb being active in its form.

II.

A DISTRAUGHT WOMAN SEEKS HELP. Mark 7:25-26

The reason that he could not be concealed is now recorded. For a woman, having heard of him, i.e. of his arrival now, or of his miracles before; but even in the latter case, the other fact must be supplied. Whose little daughter (an affectionate diminutive, used also in Mark 5:23) had an unclean spirit, in the sense repeatedly explained already. It appears from this case, that these demoniacal possessions were not confined to Jews, or to any age or sex. Coming (into the house where he was) and Falling at his feet, the full phrase which occurs in a contracted form above, the act denoting not religious adoration but importunate entreaty.

Mark 7:26. The remarkable circumstance in this case, which in part accounts for its insertion in the history, is that the woman here described was a Gentile, not only by residence but by extraction. A Greek, not in the strict sense, but in the wider one arising from the Macedonian conquests, which diffused the Greek civilization through the whole of western Asia, so that in the later Jewish dialect, Greek was substantially synonymous with Gentile, even where the language was not actually spoken, as it may have been in this case, A Syrophenician, so called either in distinction from the Libyophenicians in Africa, or because Phenicia, as well as Palestine, belonged to the great Roman province of Syria. Both countries also had been peopled by the sons of Canaan, so that this woman was at once a Greek, a Syrophenician, and a Canaanite (Matthew 15:22.) By nation, race, extraction, birth, (Compare Acts 4:36; Acts 13:26; Acts 18:2; Acts 18:24, Philippians 3:5,) Asked, in the secondary sense of begged, and therefore followed by that, and not by whether. (Compare Luke 4:38.) Cast forth the devil, or expel the demon. (J. A. Alexander)

III.

JESUS TESTS HER FAITH, Mark 7:27

Another singularity of this case, which suggests a further reason for its being so minutely stated, is our Lord's refusal to perform the miracle, of which this is the first and only instance upon record. Even here, however, it was not an absolute and permanent refusal, but a relative and temporary one, designed to answer an important purpose, both in its occurrence and in the historical account of it. Let, or more emphatically, let alone (implying an untimely interference), suffer or permit, the same verb which we have already had in different applications, Filled, sated, satisfied, the same verb as in Mark 6:42, and there explained. Meet, i.e. suitable, becoming, handsome, which approaches nearest to the strict sense of the Greek word, namely, fair or beautiful, though commonly applied in Scripture to excellence or beauty of a moral kind. To take, not pleonastic, as it often is in vulgar English, but to take away from them and bestow it upon others. The children's bread, the bread intended and provided for them, and when actually given belonging to them. Dogs, a diminutive supposed by some to be contemptuous, like whelps, or puppies, but by others an expression of affectionate familiarity, like little daughter (A Greek word of the same form) in Mark 7:25. This question is connected with another, as to the sense in which dogs are mentioned here at all, whether simply in allusion to the wild gregarious oriental dog, regarded as an impure and ferocious beast, or to the classical and modern European notion of the dog as a domesticated animal, the humble companion and faithful friend of man. The objection to the former explanation is not only its revolting harshness and the ease with which the same idea might have been expressed in a less unusual manner, but the obvious relation here supposed between the children and the dogs, as at and under the same table, and belonging as it were to the same household. John, it is true, uses dogs in the offensive sense first mentioned; but his language is without are dogs (Revelation 22:15), apparently referring to the homeless dogs which prowl through the streets of eastern cities (compare Psalms 22:20; Psalms 59:6. Matthew 7:6. Philippians 3:2); but here the dogs are represented as within, and fed beneath their master's table. The beauty of our Saviour's figure would be therefore marred by understanding what he says of savage animals, without relation or attachment to mankind. Cast, throw away, a term implying waste of the material as well as some contempt of the recipient. Like most of our Lord's parables or illustrations from analogy, this exquisite similitude is drawn from the most familiar habits of domestic life, and still comes home to the experience of thousands.

IV.

SHE ANSWERS IN FAITH AND HUMILITY. Mark 7:28

Mark 7:28. There is no dispute as to the meaning of this admirable answer, which might almost be applauded for its wit, if Christ himself had not ascribed to it a higher merit, as an evidence of signal faith, combined with a humility no less remarkable. There is, however, some dispute as to its form, particularly that of the first clause, which some explain as a denial of what he had said, and others more correctly as a partial affirmation or assent, but followed by a partial contradition, as in our translation. The best philological interpreters are now agreed that yet is not a correct version of the Greek phrase, which can only mean agreeably to usage, for or for even. The meaning of the answer then will be, -Yes, Lord (or Sir), it is true that it would not be becoming to deprive the children of their food, in order to supply the dogs; for these are not to eat the children's bread, but the crumbs (or fragments) falling from the table.-' The whole is therefore an assent to what our Lord had said, including his description of the Gentiles (Matthew 15:24) as the dogs beneath the table, and a thankful consent to occupy that place and to partake of that inferior provision. Of (literally from) the crumbs is not here a partitive expression, as it sometimes is, but simply indicates the source from which the nourishment is drawn. The idea suggested by an ancient and adopted by a modern writer, that the word translated crumbs here means the pieces of bread which the ancients used as napkins, is not only a gratuitous refinement, but a needless variation from the usage of the word, which is a regular diminutive of one itself denoting a crumb, bit, or morsel, especially of bread. Children is also a diminutive, the same with that in Mark 5:39-41, and entirely distinct in form, though not in meaning, from the one here used in the preceding verse.

V.

HER REQUEST IS GRANTED. Mark 7:29-30

Mark 7:29. For (the sake of, on account of) this word (saying, speech, or answer), go thy way (i.e. in modern English, go away, depart), perhaps to be taken as an abbreviation of the full phrase, go in peace (or into peace) employed above in Mark 5:34, and there explained. The merit of her answer was its faith (Matthew 15:28), to which her whole request was granted instantaneously, the demon having actually left her child when these gracious words were uttered. Now as this faith was the gift of Christ himself, there could neither be surprise on his part, nor legal merit upon hers, but only a benignant recognition of his own work in her heart, which his discouraging reception of her prayer at first had served both to strengthen and illustrate, and was therefore no more unkind than the similar processes continually going on in true believers, though of course unknown to the experience of those skeptical interpreters, who either sneer at this as cruel treatment of a distfessed mother, or assume a real change of purpose wrought in Christ by her persistent importunity.

Mark 7:30. This is merely a distinct historical statement of the fact that she found the Saviour's declaration verified on reaching home, the demon (actually) gone out and the daughter laid upon the bed, or rather thrown there (as the Greek word strictly means) by the fiend at his departure, so that her mother found her just as he had left her. This removes all appearance of departure from the general rule previously laid down, and derived by induction from the history at large, that in cases of miraculous restoration there was no protracted convalescence, but an instantaneous return to ordinary occupations. Had this been a case of mere corporeal healing or resuscitation, the effect would probably have been the same as in the cases just referred to. But the miracle was here one of dispossession, and this was no doubt sudden and complete; for the bodily exhaustion which ensued was not a remnant of the previous disease, or even a transition from an abnormal to a normal state, but rather a decisive indication that the latter had been reinstated as the preternatural excitement which accompanied possession, and was usually symptomatic of it (see above, on Mark 5:5), would not have allowed her to lie quietly upon her bed, the sight of which recumbent posture must have satisfied the mother instantly, not that her daughter was recovering, but that she was recovered, from her fearful preternatural disorder. In recording this most interesting miracle, Mark treats it as an instance of extraordinary faith, without making prominent its bearing on our Lord's relation to the Jews and Gentiles, which belongs therefore rather to the exposition of the parallel account in Matthew (Matthew 15:21-28.) (J. A. Alexander)

FACT QUESTIONS 7:24-30

390.

From thence refers to what place?

391.

How were the movements of the Saviour decided?

392.

What is meant by the word borders of Tyre and Sidon?

393.

What was the probable purpose in Jesus-' desire to be hid?

394.

Just what did the woman do when she came into the house where Jesus was staying?

395.

In what sense was this woman a Greek? In what sense a Canaanite?

396.

How is the word take used in reference to the children's bread?

397.

In what sense was the word dogs used by our Lord?

398.

Did the woman agree with Jesus in the evaluation of children and dogs? What were the crumbs?

399.

When did the demon leave the daughter?

400.

Did Jesus change His purpose with the woman because of her begging?

401.

Was the child laid out on the bed by friends or the demonexplain.

402.

Was there ever any period of convalescence in the healings of Jesus?