The Syrophenician Woman

S. Mark vii. 24–30

This incident seems to point to a somewhat new departure in our Lord’s mission. His ruling maxim had been, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” It had not prevented Him from bestowing favour upon such of the heathen as had come in His way. He could hardly have failed to heal some that were sick among the inhabitants of Decapolis; and one instance is left on record of blessings bestowed upon a Roman centurion. He was perfectly familiar with the prophecies which foretold that the Gentiles should profit by His coming, that He would be “a Light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well as “the glory of His people Israel;” but for manifold reasons He felt that His personal ministry must be circumscribed, and confined within strictly Jewish limits.

Now, for the first — for the only — time, He appears to have passed into heathen territory. It has been maintained, however, that He merely approached the confines without overstepping the boundary line. It may be that “Tyre and Sidon” were not only cities, but districts, and that the “coasts” or “borders of Tyre and Sidon” meant nothing more than “the marches” which separated Phenicia from Galilee; but the statement of a later verse, that He went “through Sidon,” leads to the more natural conclusion that He did actually set foot upon heathen land.

It is worthy of note, nevertheless, that it was not with the intention of preaching or performing any ministerial work, but mainly in search of privacy and seclusion. He needed rest after His prolonged labours, and He may have felt it prudent also to place Himself, in a time of some special excitement, beyond the reach of Herod’s machinations. No sooner had He crossed the frontier than He sought shelter in a house. To avoid any unnecessary offence to those who accompanied Him, we may conclude that it was that of a Jew; for, though strictly a heathen country, the population had been a mixed one for many centuries.

The fame of His doings had penetrated those parts, for the scene of His chief miracles was not much above thirty miles distant; and though He expressed His desire to be left undisturbed, “He could not be hid.” He was almost immediately discovered by a poor woman, who was in great distress through a terrible affliction which had befallen her child. Her nationality is emphasised by the Evangelists with a variety of expression. She is characterised vaguely as “a Greek,” not in the limited sense with which we are most familiar, but as a generic term for non-Jewish people, very much as the Turks and Asiatics adopt the designation of “Frank” for any European. Her personal name has come down through tradition as Justa, and that of her daughter as Bernice. She is called by S. Matthew “a woman of Canaan” — an inhabitant of the region into which those who escaped extermination had been shut up; and the title may have been selected to enhance the loving-kindness of the Lord, not without reference to her inheritance of the ancient malediction, “Cursed be Canaan.” She is also called here a Syrophenician by descent, probably to distinguish her from those Libyo - Phenicians: in the 1 It is supposed by some that the above distinction was not known, and northern coasts of Africa, whom the fame of Carthage had made so widely known.

She was, no doubt, in religion a heathen, but was possessed by principles which, when called into active exercise by the Great Teacher, served her in better stead than the orthodox creed did not a few of its professors.

She had heard of the fame of Jesus, probably from those “about Tyre and Sidon” who had joined the crowds at Capernaum a year before; perhaps they had even told her how the evil spirit had been cast out of the demoniac in the synagogue, and in the fulness of hope and faith she had believed all that she heard; and now that the great Wonderworker was actually come within reach, she hurried into His Presence, and, despite every hindrance, threw herself at His feet in supplication for mercy. He must have been surprised by the title with which she addressed Him, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David,” for it was that which bespoke the Jewish Messiah, the Saviour of the world. But He met her petition by an instantaneous rebuff: “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.” It would have checked the eagerness of most suppliants, but hers was no common faith, and her determination to find relief was only equalled by the soreness of her need. Though there was much that she could not have expected, and for which she was unprepared, in the language that He used, it was not altogether harsh, and she caught at whatever seemed to mitigate it. It is quite possible also that there was something either in the expression of His face or the tone of His voice, which lessened the discouragement.

She had often heard her people characterised as “dogs.” It was a title by which “the Jews, whose first care it was to hate, to mock, and to curse all besides themselves, disgraced the Gentiles.” The noble nature of the dog finds no recognition in the history of the Old or New Testaments. Among Jews, dogs were regarded as wild, savage, undomesticated that the true rendering is a Phenician Syrian, as in some copies, “Zvpa QoLviaaa. In the LXX. Canaan is translated Qoivlkt). animals, which prowled about cities as the scavengers of the streets, with no masters and no homes.

But Jesus, by the use of a diminutive not to be expressed in English, softened not a little the harshness of the comparison, implying that the dogs to which He likened them were not excluded from the house. And the woman, with the instincts of a Gentile, with whom the dog was not only a favourite, but an almost necessary companion, having its place at the domestic hearth, turned it at once into an argument in her favour, and replied, “Yes, Lord” — or if we admit the truer reading — ‘I accept the position, “for the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.”’ What she meant to convey must have been something like this: ‘I do not deny that the Jews are the first object of Your care and ministration. They are the true children; and I am far from asking that they should ever be superseded in their rightful prerogative; but the very fact that You should speak of their being first fed seems to imply that our turn will come after them, and Your mitigation of the harsh unfeeling byword, which the Jews adopt, encourages me to persevere in my petition. Let the full board, then — the plentiful bread of grace, — be reserved for the Jewish children; but only let me be as the dog under the table, to partake of the crumbs of mercy and comfort that fall from it’

Such a pleading as that was irresistible: her prayer was answered, and for that saying, and the greatness of the faith of which it was the expression, her daughter was delivered from her dreadful affliction.

The story places before us a pattern of meekness and perseverance rarely equalled. How many, even with privileges of teaching and education to which she was a stranger, would have taken offence at the apparent insult of such a reception as she met with! But with all the forbearance of the meek and quiet spirit, which disarms opposition, she discerned a smile beneath His frown, and won her petition. How many, again, if not offended and full of resentment, would have turned away discouraged! To have hoped, as she had done, against hope, and then to have heard that there was One Who could give her relief, and to have flung herself at His feet in the agony of supplication, and to be so received! Could we have been surprised if despair had taken possession of her, and she had hurried from His Presence? But faith triumphed over all disappointment, and “her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” Whether it was given to her to understand it, we cannot tell; but the seeming harshness of her Saviour’s conduct was but a new revelation of His unfailing love. The same love which, when faith was weak, prompted Him to go forth to meet it, led Him to hold Himself back when faith was strong, that it might be yet further purified and made perfect through trial.

Note: The only mention of a dog as a domestic animal among Jews is in Tobit, where Tobias goes forth on a journey to Media, and “the young man’s dog with them.” — Tob. v. 16.

Note: The common term of contempt was Kijves. Jesus said Kvvdpia, catelli, little dogs, pet dogs.