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Matthew15:21–28

The Faith of the Canaanite Woman

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Matthew 15:21–28 — The Faith of the Canaanite Woman. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

21

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai exelthōn ekeithen ho Iēsous anechōrēsen eis ta merē Tyrou kai Sidōnos

Word by word12 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐξελθὼνexelthōnLeavingG1831
√ ἐξέρχομαι — to issue (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἐξέρχομαι: to issue, go out Aorist participle, subordinate to the main verb: the going out is the precondition of the withdrawal. Matthew's narrative logic is that the Pharisaic confrontation over defilement (the immediately preceding discourse) pushes Jesus outward, and the next thing that happens is that a ritually unclean Gentile receives mercy. Ellicott presses the irony: “The dust of the heathen cities was not more defiling than that of Capernaum.”
ἐκεῖθενekeithenthat placeG1564
√ ἐκεῖθεν — thenceAdverb
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἸησοῦςIēsousJesusG2424
√ Ἰησοῦς — Jesus (iNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἀνεχώρησενanechōrēsenwithdrewG402
√ ἀναχωρέω — to retireVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἀναχωρέω: to retire, withdraw Aorist indicative active, the sentence's only finite verb. This is Matthew's recurring word for strategic retreat rather than flight. Maclaren reads the whole scene under it: “The King of Israel has passed beyond the bounds of Israel, driven by the hostility of those who should have been His subjects.” The withdrawal, not a mission tour, is what puts the Messiah within reach of a Canaanite.
εἰςeistoG1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
τὰtatheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Plural
μέρηmerēdistrictG3313
√ μέρος — a division or share (literally or figuratively, in a wide application)NounAccusative Neuter Plural
μέρος: a division or share Accusative neuter plural after εἰς. Whether εἰς τὰ μέρη means into the territory or only to its edge is the crux of the unit's geography, and the brief's commentators split: Poole and Ellicott lean to an actual crossing, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge and Pulpit to the border only, chiefly because of Matthew 10:5 and v. 24 below.
ΤύρουTyrouof TyreG5184
√ Τύρος — TyreNounGenitive Feminine Singular
Τύρος: Tyre With Σιδών it forms a fixed Gospel pair naming the archetypal Gentile city, the two Phoenician capitals never subdued by Israel though allotted to Asher (Pulpit). Matthew has already used the pair in the woe of 11:21-22, where Tyre and Sidon would have repented had they seen what Galilee saw. The Verifier confirms both names recur together in a small set of verses.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ΣιδῶνοςSidōnosSidonG4605
√ Σιδών — Sidon (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
Σιδών: Sidon Pulpit records the moral geography plainly: “The Phoenicians were sunk in the grossest idolatry; the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth reigned among them with all its depravity and pollution.” That is the ground the next verse's suppliant comes from, and it is why her title for Jesus in v. 22 is startling.
22

And a Canaanite woman from that region came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai idou Chananaia gynē apo tōn ekeinōn horiōn exelthousa ekrazen legousa Kyrie huios Dauid Eleēson me mou hē thygatēr kakōs daimonizetai

Word by word21 · parsed
καὶkaiAndG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἰδοὺidou. . .G2400
√ ἰδού — used as imperative lo!VerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Singular
ἰδού: lo, behold A frozen aorist imperative used as a particle. Pulpit: “The word marks the sudden and unexpected character of the incident.”
ΧαναναίαChananaiaa CanaaniteG5478
√ Χανααναῖος — a Chanaanæan (iAdjectiveNominative Feminine Singular
Χανααναῖος: a Chanaanæan Ellicott traces the term's narrowing from all the pre-Israelite inhabitants (Genesis 10:18; 12:6) to Phoenicia specifically (Exodus 3:8, 17; Ezra 9:1), and Cambridge notes the LXX of Joshua 5:12 renders “the land of Canaan” as the land of the Phoenicians. Matthew's choice of the archaic word is therefore theological, not merely ethnographic: Ellicott adds that she belonged “to the Canaan on which the primeval curse was held to rest (Genesis 9:25).”
γυνὴgynēwomanG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounNominative Feminine Singular
ἀπὸapofromG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
τῶνtōnvvvG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Plural
ἐκείνωνekeinōnthatG1565
√ ἐκεῖνος — that one (or (neuter) thing)Demonstrative PronounGenitive Neuter Plural
ὁρίωνhoriōnregionG3725
√ ὅριον — a boundary-line, iNounGenitive Neuter Plural
ὅριον: a boundary-line Genitive plural with ἀπό: she came out away from her own borders. Pulpit builds an argument on the preposition, that the phrase “could hardly have been used if Christ had at this time been within them.” The word for “region” is literally the word for a limit, and this whole unit is about a limit being approached from both sides.
ἐξελθοῦσαexelthousacame [to Him]G1831
√ ἐξέρχομαι — to issue (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
ἔκραζενekrazencrying outG2896
√ κράζω — properly, to "croak" (as a raven) or scream, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
κράζω: to croak, scream Imperfect, sustained. The same verb returns in v. 23 in the present tense on the disciples' lips (κράζει), so the noise the narrator reports is the noise they complain of. This is the cry of the desperate in the Gospels: the demoniacs, the blind men of Jericho, Peter sinking in the water.
λέγουσαlegousaG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
ΚύριεKyrieLordG2962
√ κύριος — supreme in authority, iNounVocative Masculine Singular
υἱὸςhuiosSonG5207
√ υἱός — a "son" (sometimes of animals), used very widely of immediate, remote or figuratively, kinshipNounNominative Masculine Singular
υἱός: a son Nominative for vocative, paired with Κύριε. Gill divides the two titles: “Lord” expresses “her faith in his power, dominion, and government,” “son of David” her belief that he is the Messiah. Pulpit is more cautious, judging that “At present she saw in Christ only a merciful Wonder-worker,” an estimate her later worship (v. 25) and her argument (v. 27) outgrow.
ΔαυίδDauidof DavidG1138
√ Δαβίδ — Dabid (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
ἘλέησόνEleēsonhave mercy onG1653
√ ἐλεέω — to compassionate (by word or deed, specially, by divine grace)VerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Singular
ἐλεέω: to show mercy, by word or deed Aorist imperative, a request for one decisive act, not a habit. She asks mercy for herself though the sufferer is her daughter. Cambridge: “Identifying herself with her daughter,” comparing Mark 9:22. Henry's reading is that she pleads no merit at all: “she pleads not merit, but depends upon mercy.”
μεmemeG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative 1st Person Singular
μουmouMyG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 1st Person Singular
ἡhēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
θυγάτηρthygatērdaughterG2364
√ θυγάτηρ — a female child, or (by Hebraism) descendant (or inhabitant)NounNominative Feminine Singular
κακῶςkakōs{is} miserablyG2560
√ κακῶς — badly (physically or morally)Adverb
δαιμονίζεταιdaimonizetaipossessed by a demonG1139
√ δαιμονίζομαι — to be exercised by a dæmonVerbPresent Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
δαιμονίζομαι: to be exercised by a demon Present indicative middle or passive, third singular. Pulpit is careful about the ethics: “the possession must have been unconnected with any ethical relations. It was not that the child, by any act of her own, had put herself into the demon's power.” The affliction is not moral desert, which is the exact ground on which the mother can appeal purely to mercy.
23

But Jesus did not answer a word. So His disciples came and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Ho ouk apekrithē logon autē kai autou hoi mathētai proselthontes ērōtoun auton legontes Apolyson autēn hoti krazei opisthen hēmōn

Word by word20 · parsed
δὲdeButG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὉHoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
οὐκoukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἀπεκρίθηapekrithē[Jesus] did not answerG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
ἀποκρίνομαι: to answer Aorist passive in form, active in force, negated by οὐκ. This is the first of the four “he answered” beats by which Maclaren divides the story, and the only one that answers nothing. Cambridge observes the sequence precisely: “Observe that Christ first refuses by silence, then by express words.” Barnes reads the purpose as pedagogical, that “there might be exhibited to the apostles an example of the effect of persevering supplication.”
λόγονlogona wordG3056
√ λόγος — something said (including the thought)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
λόγος: something said Accusative of content: not one word. The idiom is absolute.
αὐτῇautēG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiSoG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
αὐτοῦautouHisG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
οἱhoiG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
μαθηταὶmathētaidisciplesG3101
√ μαθητής — a learner, iNounNominative Masculine Plural
προσελθόντεςproselthontescameG4334
√ προσέρχομαι — to approach, iVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Plural
ἠρώτουνērōtoun[and] urgedG2065
√ ἐρωτάω — to interrogateVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
ἐρωτάω: to interrogate, to ask Imperfect indicative active, third plural, with the aorist participle προσελθόντες (“having approached”) subordinate to it. The disciples' repeated asking is set against her repeated crying, and Poole notes drily that this intercession proves nothing for invoking departed saints, “for these disciples were alive.”
αὐτὸνautonHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
λέγοντεςlegontesG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Plural
ἈπόλυσονApolysonSend her awayG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Singular
ἀπολύω: to free fully, release Aorist imperative. The verb's own semantic range is release rather than expulsion, which is why Benson, Gill and Pulpit can read the disciples as asking for the cure. Jesus' reply in v. 24, a statement about the scope of his mission rather than about noise, is the strongest internal evidence that he heard it as a request to grant, not merely to be rid of her.
αὐτήνautēn. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ὅτιhotiforG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
κράζειkrazeishe keeps crying outG2896
√ κράζω — properly, to "croak" (as a raven) or scream, iVerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
κράζω: to croak, scream Present indicative, durative, on the disciples' lips: she will not stop. Their sentence gives its own motive away in the pronoun. Ellicott: “They wanted only to be rid of her presence, which had followed them from the streets into the house, to be freed from the loud eager cries which vexed them.”
ὄπισθενopisthenafterG3693
√ ὄπισθεν — from G3700 (ὀπτάνομαι)) with enclitic of sourcePreposition
ὄπισθεν: from behind A rare preposition (the Verifier counts it in only a handful of verses). It fixes her posture: excluded from the circle, following at the rear, addressing backs. Everything she is granted by v. 28 is granted without her ever being let inside the circle on any ground but mercy.
ἡμῶνhēmōnusG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 1st Person Plural
24

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Ho apokritheis eipen Ouk apestalēn ei mē eis ta ta apolōlota probata oikou Israēl

Word by word15 · parsed
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὉHoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἀποκριθεὶςapokritheisHe answeredG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Participle PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
εἶπενeipen. . .G2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ΟὐκOukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἀπεστάληνapestalēnI was sentG649
√ ἀποστέλλω — set apart, iVerbAorist Indicative Passive1st Person Singular
ἀποστέλλω: to send forth, set apart Aorist indicative passive, first singular. The divine passive is the theological hinge of the whole unit: the refusal is obedience, not disdain. Gill draws the classic distinction, that as priest and Redeemer he was sent for the elect of all nations, but “as a prophet, in the discharge of his own personal ministry, he was sent by his Father only to the Jews,” citing Romans 15:8. Ellicott reasons from consequence instead: one exception “might be followed by a thousand,” and he would forfeit Israel's hearing before the time.
εἰeionlyG1487
√ εἰ — if, whether, that, etcConjunction
μὴmē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
εἰςeistoG1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
τὰtatheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Plural
τὰtaG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Plural
ἀπολωλόταapolōlotalostG622
√ ἀπόλλυμι — to destroy fully (reflexively, to perish, or lose), literally or figurativelyVerbPerfect Participle ActiveAccusative Neuter Plural
ἀπόλλυμι: to destroy fully, to perish, to be lost Perfect active participle, accusative neuter plural, attributive to πρόβατα. The lexicon's first sense is destruction, not misplacement, so these are sheep already ruined. That is why Pulpit hears tenderness rather than dismissal here: “There is a tenderness in this expression natural from the mouth of the good Shepherd.” The same phrase was the charter of the Twelve at Matthew 10:6.
πρόβαταprobatasheepG4263
√ πρόβατον — something that walks forward (a quadruped), iNounAccusative Neuter Plural
πρόβατον: something that walks forward, a sheep Strong's etymology (that which goes forward) is itself ironic for a flock defined by having strayed. Cambridge sends the reader to Ezekiel 34 for the developed picture of the scattered flock no one sought, and Pulpit to Jeremiah 50:6. The metaphor identifies Israel as needing a shepherd, not as possessing one.
οἴκουoikouof [the] houseG3624
√ οἶκος — a dwelling (more or less extensive, literal or figurative)NounGenitive Masculine Singular
οἶκος: a dwelling, a household Genitive, anarthrous. Geneva glosses the phrase by descent: “Of the people of Israel, who were divided into tribes, but all those tribes came from one family.” The word carries the unit forward into v. 26, where the household's bread and the household's dogs are weighed against each other.
ἸσραήλIsraēlof IsraelG2474
√ Ἰσραήλ — Israel (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
25

The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Hē elthousa prosekynei autō Kyrie boēthei moi legousa

Word by word9 · parsed
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἩHēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
ἐλθοῦσαelthousa[The woman] cameG2064
√ ἔρχομαι — to come or go (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
προσεκύνειprosekynei[and] knelt beforeG4352
√ προσκυνέω — to fawn or crouch to, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
προσκυνέω: to prostrate oneself, to do homage Imperfect indicative active. Gill marks the escalation of address across the unit: “she had called Christ Lord, and the son of David before, but now she worships him as God.” Matthew uses this verb of the magi, of the leper, and of the disciples after the resurrection, so within his Gospel the posture is not merely oriental courtesy.
αὐτῷautōHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
ΚύριεKyrieLordG2962
√ κύριος — supreme in authority, iNounVocative Masculine Singular
βοήθειboētheihelpG997
√ βοηθέω — to aid or relieveVerbPresent Imperative Active2nd Person Singular
βοηθέω: to aid, to relieve Present imperative active, second singular, a rare verb. Her prayer has been stripped to its bones: no messianic title, no ground, no argument, just the vocative and the imperative. Pulpit reads the stripping as progress, not retreat: “She begins to feel that she has little claim upon him as the Jewish Messiah; she appeals rather to his mercy and his power.”
μοιmoimeG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounDative 1st Person Singular
ἐγώ: I, me Dative of the person helped. She still asks for herself, as in v. 22, though the sufferer is her daughter; Gill: “calls helping her daughter, helping herself.”
λέγουσαlegousashe saidG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
26

But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Ho apokritheis eipen estin Ouk kalon labein ton tōn teknōn arton kai balein tois kynariois

Word by word16 · parsed
δὲdeButG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὉHoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἀποκριθεὶςapokritheis[Jesus] repliedG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Participle PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
εἶπενeipenG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἔστινestinIt isG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ΟὐκOuknotG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
καλὸνkalonrightG2570
√ καλός — X better, fair, good(-ly), honest, meet, well, worthyAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
καλός: good, fair, fitting Predicate nominative neuter with ἔστιν. He does not say the thing is forbidden, or that she is unworthy; he says the act would not be fitting, a judgment about order and proportion in a household. That is the exact register in which she answers, arguing not against the order but from inside it.
λαβεῖνlabeinto takeG2983
√ λαμβάνω — while G138 (αἱρέομαι) is more violent, to seize or remove))VerbAorist Infinitive Active
λαμβάνω: to take, to receive Aorist infinitive, paired with βαλεῖν. Strong's distinguishes it from the more violent αἱρέομαι; taking bread off the children's table is presented as depriving, and the pair of infinitives (take away, throw down) describes one act with two victims.
τὸνtontheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
τῶνtōnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Plural
τέκνωνteknōnchildren’sG5043
√ τέκνον — a child (as produced)NounGenitive Neuter Plural
ἄρτονartonbreadG740
√ ἄρτος — bread (as raised) or a loafNounAccusative Masculine Singular
ἄρτος: bread, a loaf Accusative singular with the article. In Matthew's own narrative, loaves have just been multiplied for Israel (14:13-21) and will shortly be multiplied again on the far shore (15:32-39), and Maclaren reads the whole unit against that background as “the contrast between the single cure of the woman's demoniac daughter, obtained after so long imploring, and the spontaneous abundance of the cures wrought when Jesus again had Jewish sufferers to do with.” Bread here is not scarce; it is ordered.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
βαλεῖνbaleintoss [it]G906
√ βάλλω — to throw (in various applications, more or less violent or intense)VerbAorist Infinitive Active
βάλλω: to throw, to cast Aorist infinitive active. The violence of the verb is the offence of the saying, and Barnes will not let it be softened into divine contempt: he insists Christ “cannot be understood as intending to justify or sanction the use of such terms,” but is quoting the common speech of the nation to test her.
τοῖςtoisto theG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Neuter Plural
κυναρίοιςkynarioisdogsG2952
√ κυνάριον — a puppyNounDative Neuter Plural
κυνάριον: a puppy, a little dog Dative plural, a rare diminutive that the Verifier finds in only a handful of verses, all of them in this scene and its Marcan parallel. Barnes records the sting plainly: to the Jews, dog “is designed as an expression of the highest contempt,” and Cambridge adds that Paul turns the same slur back on Judaizing teachers at Philippians 3:2. The diminutive is also the one crack in the wall, and she goes straight through it.
27

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Nai kyrie de Hē eipen gar kai ta kynaria esthiei apo tōn psichiōn tōn piptontōn apo autōn tōn kyriōn tēs trapezēs

Word by word21 · parsed
ΝαίNaiYesG3483
√ ναί — yesParticle
ναί: yes Unqualified assent. She concedes the whole framework before arguing at all, and Poole's paraphrase catches the weight of the concession: “Lord, I confess the Jews are children; I am a dog, a poor heathen, no proper member of the household of God.”
κύριεkyrieLordG2962
√ κύριος — supreme in authority, iNounVocative Masculine Singular
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἩHēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
εἶπενeipenshe saidG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
γὰρgarG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
γάρ: for, assigning a reason A postpositive causal particle, and the single most consequential small word in the unit. With it, her sentence is an inference drawn from his own saying; without it (as in the older English “yet”), it becomes a protest against it. Ellicott and Cambridge both correct the older versions here.
καὶkaievenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τὰtatheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Neuter Plural
κυνάριαkynariadogsG2952
√ κυνάριον — a puppyNounNominative Neuter Plural
κυνάριον: a puppy, a little dog Nominative plural, the subject of her sentence. She takes the slur as a premise and makes it work for her, which is what Christ commends in v. 28 as faith. Gill notes that the Syrophoenicians were known for ready, graceful speech, and he hears it here.
ἐσθίειesthieieatG2068
√ ἐσθίω — used only in certain tenses, the rest being supplied by G5315 (φάγω)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἀπὸapoG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
τῶνtōntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Plural
ψιχίωνpsichiōncrumbsG5589
√ ψιχίον — a little bit or morselNounGenitive Neuter Plural
ψιχίον: a little bit, a morsel Genitive plural after ἀπό (partitive): they eat from among the crumbs, not even all of them. A rare word. Henry turns it devotionally, and the turn is faithful to the Greek diminutive: “The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life.”
τῶνtōnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Plural
πιπτόντωνpiptontōnthat fallG4098
√ πίπτω — to fall (literally or figuratively)VerbPresent Participle ActiveGenitive Neuter Plural
ἀπὸapofromG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
αὐτῶνautōntheirG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Plural
τῶνtōnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Plural
κυρίωνkyriōnmaster’sG2962
√ κύριος — supreme in authority, iNounGenitive Masculine Plural
κύριος: supreme in authority, lord, master Genitive plural. The plural is generic (householders in general), but because it is the same word she used in the vocative singular two verses earlier, her illustration silently confesses whose table this is. Cambridge refers the masters to God; on that reading she has just placed Israel and herself alike under one owner, which is precisely the theology Peter will state at Acts 10:34-35.
τῆςtēsG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
τραπέζηςtrapezēstableG5132
√ τράπεζα — a table or stool (as being four-legged), usually for food (figuratively, a meal)NounGenitive Feminine Singular
τράπεζα: a table, figuratively a meal Genitive singular. One table, one household, two kinds of portion. Pulpit fills in the domestic reality that makes her argument work: fragments were numerous because bread itself served as platter and napkin, and the dogs of the East “have access to the rooms, and live on what they can pick up.”
28

“O woman,” Jesus answered, “your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Ō gynai Tote ho Iēsous apokritheis eipen autē sou hē pistis megalē genēthētō soi hōs theleis kai autēs hē thygatēr iathē apo tēs ekeinēs hōras

Word by word25 · parsed
ὮŌOG5599
√ ὦ — as a sign of the vocative case, OInterjection
ὦ: the vocative particle, O An interjection of feeling. Gill hears astonishment in it, that “he seems surprised, that she, a woman, and a poor Gentile, should express such strong faith in him.”
γύναιgynaiwomanG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounVocative Feminine Singular
ΤότεToteG5119
√ τότε — the when, iAdverb
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἸησοῦςIēsousJesusG2424
√ Ἰησοῦς — Jesus (iNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἀποκριθεὶςapokritheisansweredG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Participle PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
εἶπενeipen. . .G2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
αὐτῇautē. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
σουsouyourG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 2nd Person Singular
ἡhēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
πίστιςpistisfaithG4102
√ πίστις — persuasion, iNounNominative Feminine Singular
πίστις: persuasion, conviction, faith Nominative with the article, subject of the predicate μεγάλη. What has just been called faith is worth naming exactly: she believed his power reached across distance, accepted his verdict about Israel's priority, took the name of dog without protest, and argued from his own words. Ellicott identifies her accordingly with Paul's category: “a child of the faith, though not of the flesh, of Abraham.” Henry's epigram is the sharpest summary in the brief: “Of all graces, faith honours Christ most; therefore of all graces Christ honours faith most.”
μεγάληmegalēis greatG3173
√ μέγας — big (literally or figuratively, in a very wide application)AdjectiveNominative Feminine Singular
μέγας: big, great Predicate adjective, placed first for stress. The contrast with Matthew 8:26 and 14:31 (“you of little faith”) is Matthew's own, and both of his great-faith verdicts fall on Gentiles.
γενηθήτωgenēthētōLet it be doneG1096
√ γίνομαι — to cause to be ("gen"-erate), iVerbAorist Imperative Passive3rd Person Singular
γίνομαι: to become, to come to pass Aorist imperative passive, third singular. The passive keeps the Father in view, as ἀπεστάλην did in v. 24: the one who was sent does not act outside his commission so much as the commission's Sender is free with mercy at its edges. Pulpit denies that importunity wore him down: “He acted all the time as God, who foreknew what he would do.”
σοιsoifor youG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Singular
ὡςhōsasG5613
√ ὡς — which how, iAdverb
θέλειςtheleisyou desireG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbPresent Indicative Active2nd Person Singular
θέλω: to determine, to will Present indicative active, second singular. Her will is granted as she framed it, which is remarkable given that in v. 22 she framed it for herself and in v. 27 reduced it to a crumb. Poole's comparison is Jacob at the ford: “I will not let thee go, until thou bless me.”
καὶkaiAndG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
αὐτῆςautēsherG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ἡhēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
θυγάτηρthygatērdaughterG2364
√ θυγάτηρ — a female child, or (by Hebraism) descendant (or inhabitant)NounNominative Feminine Singular
ἰάθηiathēwas healedG2390
√ ἰάομαι — to cure (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
ἰάομαι: to cure, to heal Aorist indicative passive. Matthew records the cure in four words and never brings the daughter on stage; Mark supplies the homecoming. Barnes notes the mother's evidence was after the fact: “Going home, she found her well and composed.”
ἀπὸapofromG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
τῆςtēsthatG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
ἐκείνηςekeinēsveryG1565
√ ἐκεῖνος — that one (or (neuter) thing)Demonstrative PronounGenitive Feminine Singular
ὥραςhōrashourG5610
√ ὥρα — an "hour" (literally or figuratively)NounGenitive Feminine Singular
ὥρα: an hour Genitive after ἀπό with the demonstrative: from that hour, a time-stamp rather than a narrated event. It is the Gospel's way of certifying a cure worked at a word and at a distance, with the mother as the only possible witness, and Mark supplies the confirmation she found at home. Nothing is said of the demon's departure on this side of the journey.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The withdrawal that reaches a border — 15:21

One finite verb governs the verse: ἀνεχώρησεν (anechōrēsen, G402), whose lexical sense is to retire. Gill supplies the motive from the preceding dispute, that Jesus left “to avoid any snares the Scribes and Pharisees might be laying for him,” and Barnes adds Herod. Whether he actually crossed into Phoenicia is the one live factual dispute in this unit, and the brief's voices divide. Ellicott, leaning on Mark 7:31 “in the best MSS.,” calls the journey “the one recorded exception to that self-imposed law of His ministry.” Poole inclines the same way and reads the crossing as “a kind of a praeludium to the calling of the Gentiles.” Against them, Gill (“not that he went into these places themselves”), Geneva (“Coasts which were next to Tyre and Sidon”), Cambridge and Pulpit all keep him inside the border, Pulpit arguing from v. 22's ἐξελθοῦσα that she “came out away from those borders,” which would be odd if he were already inside them. ⚙ The Greek εἰς τὰ μέρη genuinely will not settle it; Pulpit's own concession is the honest resting place, that the lesson “was given equally well by the acceptance and commendation of the Gentile woman's faith, even though Christ himself was outside of pagan territory.”

ii. A cry from the devoted race, answered by silence — 15:22-23

Matthew alone calls her Χαναναία (G5478), and Ellicott and Cambridge both show why: by the later usage of the term she is a Phoenician, but by its Pentateuchal usage she belongs to the nations under the ban. Pulpit says it without softening: “the accursed race of Canaan.” Out of that ancestry comes the title Κύριε υἱὸς Δαυίδ, and Maclaren draws the contrast that governs the whole episode: she “has learned to call Him the Son of David, owning His kingship, which His born subjects disowned.” Her verb is imperfect, ἔκραζεν, a rasping and repeated scream (Strong's root: to croak as a raven), and Matthew answers it with the most difficult sentence in the pericope: οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῇ λόγον. Barnes reads the silence as a designed trial “that there might be exhibited to the apostles an example of the effect of persevering supplication”; Geneva generalizes it, that Christ “sometimes shuts his ears, as it were, to the prayers of his saints”; Cambridge adds the structural observation that “Christ first refuses by silence, then by express words.” Ellicott dissents from nearly everyone: he refuses to read the harshness as simulated and sees instead a real conflict inside our Lord's human will, silence being “the natural outcome of the equilibrium of these conflicting motives.” The disciples break it with Ἀπόλυσον αὐτήν, and the verb will carry either dismissal or discharge; Benson, Gill and Pulpit all conclude from Jesus' reply that they were asking him to grant the cure and be rid of her, which Ellicott judges “far harsher than their Master's silence.”

iii. The commission stated, the household closed — 15:24-26

The refusal is not contempt but commission: ἀπεστάλην (G649) is a divine passive, and εἰ μὴ marks a boundary on the sending, not on the love. Poole guards the distinction carefully, that the words do not deny “that he was sent as a Redeemer to more, but not as a minister”; Gill makes the same division between priestly work for the elect of all nations and prophetic ministry to the circumcision, citing Romans 15:8, and Pulpit agrees that “his personal mission while he was on earth was confined to the Hebrew nation.” The flock is described with a perfect participle, ἀπολωλότα, sheep in a settled state of ruin, and Cambridge sends the reader to Ezekiel 34, Pulpit to Jeremiah 50:6. Then she worships (the imperfect προσεκύνει) and prays two words, Κύριε βοήθει μοι, and Gill marks the escalation: “now she worships him as God.” The answer is the household proverb about bread and κυναρίοις. On the force of that diminutive the brief's voices openly conflict: Ellicott hears house pets, Pulpit denies the Hebrews kept dogs as companions at all and hears only the countrymen's slur; Barnes insists the term is quoted, not endorsed, since Christ “cannot be understood as intending to justify or sanction the use of such terms”; Gill documents the slur at length from the Zohar and Talmud, and Poole grants the harshness while adding the hope, “but they shall have their time.” ⚙ We record the disagreement unresolved. What is certain is the grammar: he calls the act οὐ καλόν, not fitting, a judgment about order in a household, and she answers within that judgment rather than against it.

iv. Faith that argues from the table — 15:27-28

Her reply turns on a particle. Cambridge corrects the older English flatly: “‘Yet,’ of the E. V., is misleading. Translate ‘for even.’” With καὶ γὰρ her sentence becomes an inference from his own words, and Ellicott supplies the unspoken clause, “Yet grant what I ask, for the dogs under the table.” Her nouns answer his: his diminutive dogs get her diminutive crumbs (ψιχίων, G5589), and the present participle πιπτόντων keeps them falling continuously, so the children lose nothing. Cambridge fixes the owners as God rather than the Jewish people, and Gill hears her claiming a real relation: “their common Lord and Master had a propriety in them, and they in him.” Ellicott prints a Talmudic story of Jonathan son of Amram asking to be fed “as a dog is fed, who eats of the crumbs of the feast,” and Poole itemizes her three virtues, humility, modesty, fervency. The verdict is μεγάλη ... ἡ πίστις, predicate first. Poole notes that “Christ admired the faith of none but pagans,” comparing Matthew 8:10, and Ellicott files her under Romans 4:16 as “a child of the faith, though not of the flesh, of Abraham.” The cure is an aorist passive, ἰάθη, worked at a distance with no word spoken to the demon, and Pulpit refuses any suggestion that importunity wore Jesus down: “He acted all the time as God, who foreknew what he would do.”

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. Matthew has just finished a dispute about what defiles (15:1-20), and he immediately sets beside it a woman from the one race Israel was commanded to devote to destruction, who calls Jesus by his throne-name and receives what Israel's teachers would not ask for. The refusals in this scene are not a mask over a kindness already decided; taken at their word they are true statements of order. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and it would not be fitting to lift the loaf off the children's table. What the woman perceives, and what makes her faith great rather than merely stubborn, is that an order is not the same as an exclusion. She never denies the order; she locates herself inside its geometry, under the table of the same house, and asks for what that position yields. She asks for a crumb and receives the one thing in the story that is called great. There is a warning in this for anyone who reads the passage as a puzzle about divine reluctance: the silence, the statement of mission, and the proverb are all addressed to a woman who is not yet in the covenant, and she alone in the scene neither takes offence nor tries to correct the terms. The disciples want quiet, and get a doctrine of mission. She wants mercy, and gets it, in the only posture mercy can be received in. Where Ellicott sees the prayer of a suppliant moving the sympathy of Christ and so extending the limits of his work, and Barnes, Geneva, Gill and Pulpit see a trial designed from the first to display a faith already given, we decline to choose: Matthew reports the sequence and not the interior deliberation, and any reconstruction of that deliberation is inference. What the text does state is that she was never told she was wrong, and that her child was well within the hour. The pullquote below is our own sentence, not Scripture.

Great faith is not the claim of a seat at the table; it is the refusal to leave the room where the bread is.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The little dogs: the Marcan parallel and its one extra clause verbal / quotation: confirmed

Mark 7:24-30 tells this story with the same rare diminutive κυνάριον (G2952), which the Verifier finds in only four verses of the New Testament, all of them in this scene and its parallel. The shared vocabulary is dense and the Verifier records it for Mark 7:27 and 7:28. The differences are the interesting part, and the commentators exploit them: Mark identifies her as “a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation” where Matthew says Canaanite (Ellicott, Barnes, Poole, Gill, Cambridge all harmonize the two), Mark places the opening scene in a house that Jesus wished kept secret, and Mark adds a clause Matthew does not have. Cambridge calls it “a gleam of hope”: “Let the children first be filled.” Poole uses that clause to answer the objection “How came it then that the gospel was ever carried to the Gentiles?” ⚙ Readers should notice that the softening word is Mark's, not Matthew's; Matthew's version is harder, and a synthesis of the two should not be read back into this text as though it stood here.

Mark 7:24 · Mark 7:27 · Mark 7:28 · Mark 7:31

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes with Mark 7:27, G2952 κυνάριον (in 4 vv, rare), G2570 καλός (in 90 vv), G2983 λαμβάνω (in 243 vv); with Mark 7:28, G611 ἀποκρίνομαι (in 231 vv); with Mark 7:24, G1564 ἐκεῖθεν (in 27 vv), G5184 Τύρος (in 11 vv), G3725 ὅριον (in 11 vv); with Mark 7:31, G4605 Σιδών (in 9 vv), G5184 Τύρος. Both refs are Greek New Testament, so a verbal link is admissible; the rare lexeme κυνάριον carries it. This is a synoptic parallel, not a citation of one book by another.

βοήθει: the rare word for help, and the other parent of a demonized child verbal / quotation: confirmed

Her two-word prayer in v. 25 uses βοήθει (G997, to aid or relieve), a verb the Verifier finds in only eight verses. Two of its other occurrences sit in the closest possible situation: the father of the demon-afflicted boy at Mark 9:22-24 cries the same verb twice, first “help us” and then, with the same verb of screaming that Matthew uses of this woman (κράζω, G2896), “help my unbelief.” ⚙ The pairing is instructive in both directions. The Israelite father asks with a confessed deficit of faith and is helped; the Canaanite mother asks with no covenant standing and is told her faith is great. Neither is helped on the strength of a qualification. The third occurrence the Verifier surfaces, Acts 21:28, is the mob in the temple shouting the same word for help against Paul over a supposed Gentile defilement of the holy place, which is a bleak coincidence of vocabulary rather than a thematic link, and we do not press it.

Mark 9:22 · Mark 9:24 · Acts 21:28

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G997 βοηθέω (in 8 vv, rare) with Mark 9:22, Mark 9:24 and Acts 21:28, plus G2896 κράζω (in 54 vv) shared with Mark 9:24 and Acts 21:28 and G622 ἀπόλλυμι (in 84 vv) with Mark 9:22. All refs are Greek New Testament, so the verbal tier is admissible. Verbal only: no quotation is claimed in either direction.

ὄπισθεν: the other woman who came up behind him verbal / quotation: confirmed

The disciples complain that she is screaming ὄπισθεν ἡμῶν, behind us, using a preposition the Verifier finds in only seven verses. Two of them describe the hemorrhaging woman who “came up behind Him” to touch the fringe of his cloak (Matthew 9:20, Luke 8:44), and Matthew 9:20 shares with our verse the further words ἰδού and γυνή. ⚙ The resemblance is verbal and situational rather than a citation: two women, both ritually disqualified from approach, both taking the position at the back, both commended for faith and both healed at a distance from the normal channels of contact. Matthew's own summary in the earlier case, “your faith has healed you,” is the closest thing in his Gospel to the verdict pronounced here.

Matthew 9:20 · Luke 8:44

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G3693 ὄπισθεν (in 7 vv, rare) with Matthew 9:20 and Luke 8:44, plus G1135 γυνή (in 195 vv) and G2400 ἰδού (in 226 vv) with Matthew 9:20 and G4334 προσέρχομαι (in 85 vv) with Luke 8:44. All refs are Greek New Testament. The link is a shared rare lexeme within one Gospel's own idiom, not a quotation.

Tyre and Sidon: the cities Matthew has already judged structural / thematic: confirmed

Matthew has used this pair of names once before, in the woe of 11:21-22: Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth if they had seen what Chorazin and Bethsaida saw. Luke preserves the same saying (10:13-14), and both Mark 3:8 and Luke 6:17 record that people from the district of Tyre and Sidon had already come to hear Jesus and bring their afflicted. Ellicott makes the connection explicit for this verse: “He was showing in act, as before in word (Matthew 11:21), that He regarded Tyre and Sidon as standing on the same level as Chorazin and Bethsaida.” Cambridge and Pulpit both use Mark 3:8 and Luke 6:17 to explain how a Phoenician woman could already know the name Son of David, and Ellicott suggests she “may well have cherished for months the hope that one day the great Deliverer would come within her reach.” ⚙ The narrative payoff is that Matthew's hypothetical in chapter 11 becomes an actual case in chapter 15: a Tyre-and-Sidon woman does see, and does believe.

Matthew 11:21 · Matthew 11:22 · Luke 10:13 · Mark 3:8 · Luke 6:17

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G5184 Τύρος (in 11 vv) and G4605 Σιδών (in 9 vv) with Matthew 11:21-22, Luke 10:13-14, Mark 3:8 and Luke 6:17. The shared lexemes are real and relatively rare, but they are a recurring pair of place names rather than a quotation or a distinctive verbal formula, so we tier this thematic rather than verbal and under-claim deliberately.

The lost sheep of the house of Israel structural / thematic: confirmed

Jesus' self-description in v. 24 is a perfect participle of ruin attached to a flock: sheep in a settled state of being lost. The commentators in this brief both name its Old Testament roots. Cambridge: “The thought of Israel as a flock of sheep lost on the mountains is beautifully drawn out, Ezekiel 34,” quoting “My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them,” and urging the reader through the whole chapter. Pulpit points instead to Jeremiah 50:6 and notes that Jesus had already used the phrase when commissioning the Twelve (Matthew 10:6). Isaiah 53:6, “all we like sheep have gone astray,” supplies the confession the image assumes. ⚙ Read together, the prophetic background makes v. 24 less a boundary marker than a job description: he is sent where the shepherds failed, and Ezekiel 34 promises that the one who comes will be God's own shepherd over them.

Ezekiel 34:5 · Ezekiel 34:6 · Jeremiah 50:6 · Isaiah 53:6 · Matthew 10:6

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek Matthew to Hebrew Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah), so no shared Strong's number is possible and no verbal tier is available. The recorded basis is commentator attestation of a shared motif: Cambridge cites Ezekiel 34 explicitly on this verse and Pulpit cites Jeremiah 50:6 and Matthew 10:6. Matthew 10:6 is Matthew's own earlier wording of the same phrase; the Verifier did not return it as a candidate, so we claim no computed lexical basis for it.

“Son of David” in a Canaanite mouth structural / thematic: confirmed

The title she shouts is dynastic, and Cambridge states its force: it is “A title that proves the expectation that the Messiah should spring from the house of David. It is the particular Messianic prophecy which would be most likely to reach foreign countries.” The promise behind it is the oath to David of a son whose throne is established forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16) and the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1), whose reign in that same chapter reaches beyond Israel: the root of Jesse stands as a signal to the nations. ⚙ That last clause is why her use of the throne-title is not a category error. She asks a Jewish king for mercy because the Davidic promise itself was never bounded by Israel's borders, and Matthew, who opened his Gospel with “son of David” (1:1), lets a Canaanite be the one to say it plainly in chapter 15. Pulpit, more cautiously, judges that “At present she saw in Christ only a merciful Wonder-worker,” so the depth of her own understanding should not be overstated.

2 Samuel 7:12 · 2 Samuel 7:16 · Isaiah 11:1 · Isaiah 11:10 · Matthew 1:1

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so shared Strong's numbers cannot be computed and the verbal tier is excluded. The recorded basis is the titular formula itself plus Cambridge's explicit attestation on this verse that the title presupposes the Davidic dynastic promise. No formula quotation of 2 Samuel 7 or Isaiah 11 appears in the BSB text of this unit.

Canaan, Sidon, and mercy at the edge of the ban typological

Matthew's archaic word Χαναναία places this woman among the nations Israel was told to devote to destruction and make no covenant with (Deuteronomy 7:1-2), immediately before the same chapter calls Israel a holy people chosen out of all peoples (Deuteronomy 7:6), which is the children's-bread principle in its original form. ⚙ Our own figural reading, offered as such: the Old Testament itself keeps opening cracks in that wall exactly where this story stands. Elijah in the famine is sent past every widow in Israel to a widow of Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and her son is restored to her (1 Kings 17:8-24); Rahab of Jericho is spared out of the ban by faith (Joshua 2, Joshua 6:25) and stands in Matthew's own genealogy. A Sidonian district, a mother, a child given back: the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 takes her place in a pattern that the conquest narratives already contain. We mark this as our reading, not the brief's: no commentator in this unit's sources draws the Zarephath comparison, and the connection is figural rather than lexical.

Deuteronomy 7:1 · Deuteronomy 7:2 · Deuteronomy 7:6 · 1 Kings 17:9 · Joshua 6:25

basis: Figural, cross-Testament, and therefore not verbal: no shared Strong's lexeme is computable between Greek Matthew and Hebrew Deuteronomy, Kings or Joshua. The ground is the Canaanite identity named in v. 22 (Ellicott, Pulpit and Cambridge all trace it to the pre-Israelite nations) set against the ban and election texts of Deuteronomy 7. The Zarephath and Rahab comparisons are novel to this synthesis, not drawn by any commentator in this brief, and are flagged as our own.

Dogs, tables and crumbs: the proverb and its disputed sources flagged: verify source

Both Ellicott and Gill explain the saying of v. 26 by appealing to rabbinic material. Ellicott prints a Talmudic story of Jonathan son of Amram, refused a share of famine corn until he asked to be fed “as a dog is fed, who eats of the crumbs of the feast,” calling it “so singularly parallel to this that it is worth reproducing.” Gill cites the Zohar and several Talmudic tractates for the Jewish habit of calling Gentiles dogs, including a parable of a king who gives the bones to the dogs while the children eat, ending with a gloss on “thou preparest a table before me.” The secure scriptural data are smaller: Psalm 59:6 for the prowling city dogs Ellicott contrasts with the diminutive, and Philippians 3:2 where, as Cambridge notes, Paul turns the slur against Judaizing teachers. ⚙ We flag the rabbinic parallels rather than rely on them. The Zohar is a late medieval text, the Talmudic passages are centuries later than Matthew, and the folio references in Gill cannot be checked from this brief. The proverbial background is plausible and is asserted by two independent commentators; its date and provenance are not established here.

Psalm 59:6 · Philippians 3:2

basis: The scriptural refs are secure and are cited by name in this unit's own commentary (Psalm 59:6 by Ellicott on v. 26, Philippians 3:2 by Cambridge on v. 26); both are cross-Testament or thematic and no verbal tier is claimed. The thread is flagged because the substance of the parallel rests on rabbinic sources of disputed date and provenance, the Talmud story in Ellicott and the Zohar and tractate citations in Gill, which cannot be verified from the material supplied.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The bread of the household, and the loaf that was broken for all ancient/widely-held

⚙ The controlling image of the refusal is a household loaf: τὸν τῶν τέκνων ἄρτον, the children's bread. Poole identifies it as “the publication of the gospel, and the miracles by which the truth of the doctrine of it was confirmed,” and Gill as “the external ministry of the word, and the miracles of Christ wrought among them.” Pulpit reads it as “the graces and favours bestowed by God in Christ.” All three treat the loaf as something Jesus dispenses. Matthew's own arrangement presses further: a loaf-multiplication for Israel stands immediately before this scene (14:13-21) and another on the far shore immediately after it (15:32-39), and Maclaren already reads the unit against that frame, calling the contrast “an illustration of His parable of the crumbs that fell from the table and the plentiful feast that was spread upon it for the children.” Henry takes the last step, and the Greek diminutive licenses it: “The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life.” In John 6:35 the bread is not what he gives but what he is, and at the table of Matthew 26:26 the loaf he breaks and hands over is his own body, given, as Paul says in Romans 15:8-9, first to confirm the promises to the fathers and then that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. The order of v. 26 is kept and then exhausted: the children are filled first, and then the loaf turns out to be large enough that there is no such thing as a crumb of it.

John 6:35 · Matthew 26:26 · Romans 15:8 · Romans 15:9

The Shepherd sent to the sheep that had perished ancient/widely-held

⚙ The sentence that seems to shut the door is the unit's clearest statement of who Jesus is. ἀπεστάλην is passive: he is the Sent One, and what he was sent to is a flock in a perfected state of ruin (ἀπολωλότα, G622, whose first lexical sense is to destroy fully). Pulpit hears the office in the phrase, “a tenderness in this expression natural from the mouth of the good Shepherd,” and Cambridge sends the reader to Ezekiel 34, where God indicts the shepherds who fed themselves, promises to seek the scattered flock himself, and then names one shepherd, his servant David, to feed them. In John 10:11 the Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, and in John 10:16 he says there are other sheep, not of this fold, that he must bring also, so that there will be one flock and one Shepherd. Gill's dogmatic distinction in this unit points the same way, that the limit was on the prophetic ministry and not on the redemption. So v. 24 is not the Shepherd refusing a sheep outside the fold; it is the Shepherd naming the fold he was sent to first, in the hearing of one of the others he had already said he must bring.

Ezekiel 34:11 · Ezekiel 34:23 · John 10:11 · John 10:16 · Matthew 10:6

The wall of partition, standing here and broken later ancient/widely-held

⚙ This scene is the clearest place in Matthew where the dividing wall is still standing and is nevertheless crossed by mercy. Pulpit records the ancient reading and its author: “If, as Chrysostom suggests, Jesus, by going to these partly Gentile districts, wished to give a practical commentary on the abrogation of the distinction between clean and unclean (breaking down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile), this lesson was given equally well by the acceptance and commendation of the Gentile woman's faith.” Ellicott finds the same shape in the apostolic history: “We may see a relation between the two acts not unlike that which afterwards connected the vision of Peter at Joppa with his entry into the house of Cornelius at Cæsarea.” Poole calls the episode “a kind of a praeludium to the calling of the Gentiles,” and Henry, reading it devotionally, says “afterwards the ends of the earth shall see his salvation.” Ephesians 2:13-14 names what happened at the cross to the barrier this woman argued her way under, and Acts 10:34-35 is Peter saying out loud what Cambridge says her healing “points to,” the wide diffusion of the gospel beyond the Jewish race. ⚙ Our own addition, offered as fallible: her argument in v. 27 does not dismantle the wall, it finds the floor beneath it, and that is exactly the shape of Gentile inclusion in Paul, grafted into a tree they did not grow.

Ephesians 2:13 · Ephesians 2:14 · Acts 10:34 · Acts 10:35 · Romans 11:17

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (c. 1905)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbers as supplied. Two mechanical features of that interlinear should be known before trusting the word indices as a Greek word order. First, the display sequence follows the English rendering, not the Greek clause order: at 15:22 the vocative address is listed before the imperative (Κύριε υἱὸς Δαυίδ, then Ἐλέησόν με), at 15:23 the postpositive δὲ heads the verse, at 15:27 Ναί κύριε precedes εἶπεν, and at 15:28 Ὦ γύναι is listed before Τότε. Our literal renderings follow the given token order and should not be read as a reconstruction of the Greek word order. Second, 15:24 lists the article τὰ twice (indices 9 and 10), which we take to be an artifact of the interlinear alignment rather than a doubled article in the text; we have not asserted anything from it.

Sources. Eleven commentators are named in the brief; ten are quoted here. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown is not quoted because its entries for all eight verses contain no exposition at all, only the verse text and a cross-reference (“For the exposition, see on Mr 7:24-30”), so there is nothing in this unit to cite by anchor. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary treats 15:21-28 as a single block and the identical paragraph is reprinted under every verse; we quote it once and say so. Maclaren's exposition and Benson's note both cover the whole pericope but are filed in the brief under 15:21, which is where their excerpts sit. Maclaren's entry is capped in the brief (roughly ten thousand further characters were not supplied), so his exposition of vv. 24-28 was not available to us and we have not characterized it.

What is uncertain. Three genuine disputes are left open rather than resolved. (1) Whether Jesus entered Phoenician territory: Ellicott and Poole say yes, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge and Pulpit say he stayed at the border; the Greek εἰς τὰ μέρη does not decide it, and the appeal to Mark 7:31 depends on a manuscript judgment we cannot check here. (2) Whether the diminutive κυνάριον softens the saying: Ellicott says it names household pets, Pulpit denies that Hebrews kept dogs as companions at all. (3) Whether the harshness was a designed trial of a faith already known (Barnes, Geneva, Gill, Benson, Cambridge, Pulpit) or a real conflict in our Lord's human will resolved by her prayer (Ellicott, explicitly against “nearly all ancient and most modern interpreters”). Matthew reports speech and sequence, not interior deliberation, so both readings are inference beyond the text. Further, the rabbinic parallels adduced for the bread-and-dogs proverb (Ellicott's Talmud story, Gill's Zohar and tractate citations) are late and unverifiable from this brief, and the corresponding thread is tiered flagged for that reason. The Zarephath and Rahab comparisons in the Canaan thread are our own figural additions and are marked as novel. No formula quotation of the Old Testament appears in the BSB text of this unit, so every Old Testament contact here is tiered thematic or typological and never verbal.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)