NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Part V

Verse 21: Jesus then departed from there and went to the area of Tyre and Sidon.

Most scholars believe that Jesus only went as far as the border between Israel and Phoenicia. Like John the Baptizer, it appears that our Lord set up a camp where He could teach and minister. Some also see this as the first test of how our Lord’s ministry would be received by non-Jews. So, as word spread more and more people came to be healed and ministered to.

This would be about a 50-mile walk from Capernaum to the Sidon district, taking Jesus and His disciples in the Northwest direction. Their walk took them over hills and valleys. Based on their speed and number of stops, this must have taken them at least three to four days. It is important to note, that Matthew includes both cities, Tyre to the south and Sidon to the north in what is Lebanon today. Below Tyre the area was called Syria. But between the two cities, it was referred to as Phoenicia. But just like the women at the well in Samaria, even so here Jesus did not do this for exercise, He was driven because of a divine appointment made by the Father.

While the exact spot where Jesus and His disciples stopped to set up camp is not named, many Bible scholars believe that it was close to the area of Hazor. Hazor is the largest biblical-era site in Israel, covering some 200 acres. The population of Hazor in the second millennium BC is estimated to have been about 20,000, making it the largest and most important city in the entire region. This is where Joshua had one of his biggest battles.¹ So this was not some out-of-the-way place where Jesus went to minister.

Aerial view from the southeast of excavated ruins of the upper city of Hazor

Verse 22: A Canaanite woman from the area to the east came out and began shouting, “Master, Son of David, please help me! My daughter has a demon inside her, and she is suffering very much.”

Early church writer Epiphanius gives us his impression of what happened here. He writes: “O great mystery! The Lord came out from the Jews, and the woman came out from her Gentile territory. He left the Jews behind, and the woman left behind idolatry and an impious lifestyle. What they had lost, she found. The One whom they had denied in the law, she professed through her faith. This woman is the symbol of the Gentiles, and she knew Christ through faith. Thus on behalf of her daughter, (the Gentile people), she entreated the Lord. The daughter had been led astray by idolatry and sin and was severely possessed by a demon.”²

This may have been the view of some in the 5th-century church such as Epiphanius the Latin,³ but what our Lord told this lady does not seem to support the idea that He was leaving behind His ministry to the Jews and was now reaching out to the Gentiles. That would come later through the apostle Paul. What most scholars believe that Christ came here to do, was to show the Jews how physically near they were to God in the flesh walking among them, but how far they were in their hearts while the Gentiles were physically far from communion with God through His Son but so close in their hearts.

Augustine of Hippo offers commentary on this text in one of his sermons. He says: “She was apparently not from the people of Israel, from whom came the patriarchs, the prophets and the parents of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh; from whom came the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ. Clearly this woman was not from that people but from the Gentiles. For, as we read, the Lord withdrew into the regions of Tyre and Sidon; and then the Canaanite woman, having gone beyond those borders, insistently sought help to heal her daughter who was beset by the devil. Tyre and Sidon were not cities of the people of Israel but of the Gentiles, although they were close to that people. She, therefore, cried out, eager to get help, and kept insisting. But she was ignored, not that mercy might be denied but that desire might be kindled; not only that desire might be kindled but, as I said before, that humility might be praised.”⁴

Bishop Hilary in the 4^th century sees this woman’s involvement with Jesus as follows: “To grasp the inner motive of the Canaanite woman for obtaining what came to pass, we must reflect on the impact of her words. There is a firm belief that there was and still is in Israel a community of proselytes who passed over from the Gentiles into the works of the law. They had left behind their previous life and were bonded by the religion of a foreign and dominating law as though from home. And since a portion of those among the crowds who believed were proselytes, this Canaanite woman most likely had left her territory, preferring the status of a proselyte—that is, coming out from the Gentiles to the community of a neighboring people. She was appealing on behalf of her daughter, who was a type of all the Gentile people. And since she knew the Lord from the law, she addressed Him as Son of David. For in the law, the king of the eternal and heavenly kingdom is referred to as the ‘rod out of the stem of Jesse and the son of David.’⁵ This woman, who professed Christ as both Lord and Son of David, did not need any healing. Rather, she was begging for help for her daughter—that is, the Gentile people in the grips of unclean spirits.”⁶

Although they were in the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, which was known as Phoenicia, the Jewish text calls her, “A woman from Kena’an (Canaan),” as does the Aramaic Version. It is possible that this reference comes from the way these people are described by Joshua: “The Canaanites living by the Mediterranean Sea.”⁷ Thus, in Mark’s Gospel, we find her listed as: “The woman was a Greek, by birth a Syro-phoenician.”⁸ This is the same designation used by a Greek writer, who refers to: “the grandson of the daughter of a certain Syrophenician merchant, named Kadmus.”⁹ So, Matthew has the proper cultural identification of this woman seeking help from Jesus.

Chrysostom gives his opinion on what may have brought about this encounter between the Jewish Messiah and a Gentile woman. He writes: “If anyone should say, Why then does Jesus allow this woman to approach Him when He says to the disciples, ‘Do not go in the way of the Gentiles?’¹⁰ We first note that He Himself, being who He is, was not, strictly speaking, required to obey the command that He gave to the disciples. We observe, second, that Jesus was not going there to preach. This is the very point that Mark implies when he says both that Jesus hid and that He could not escape notice. The fact that He did not run to them first was consistent with the order of the tasks set before Him. In exactly the same way, driving away people who were coming to Him was unworthy of His love for humanity. For if one should pursue those who are trying to escape, much more should one not try to escape those who are pursuing.”¹¹

Verses 23-24: But Jesus did not respond to her. So the followers came to Him and said, “Tell her to go away. She keeps crying out and will not leave us alone.” Jesus answered, “God sent me only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

At first glance, this reaction by Jesus to the woman’s pleas for her daughter may seem somewhat coldhearted and uncaring. But our Lord had a purpose in mind, and what better way of attracting attention than to act differently than usual. Jesus was always so open, so loving, and so caring, I’m sure His sudden aloofness caught His disciples by surprise. Apparently His lack of response was not enough for her to give up and go back home, so she followed behind the disciples and continued to beg them to get Jesus to stop and listen to her. They, in turn, approached Jesus and begged Him to send her away. Again, the Lord kept His eyes on the road and spoke firmly without making eye contact, telling them that His father sent Him to find the lost sheep of Israel.

Epiphanius gives us his interpretation of what was going on in Jesus’ mind. He writes: “It was not that the Lord was unwilling to heal her but that He might reveal her great faith and humility. Then the disciples were moved to mercy and pleaded with the Lord, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying after us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Now He said this to the crowd of Jews that they might have no excuse on the day of judgment when they might pretend to say, ‘He wanted to come to the Gentiles rather than to us.’”¹²

Verses 25-26: Then the woman ran up in front of Jesus and bowed before Him. She said, “Lord, help me!” He answered her with this saying: “It is not right to take away the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.”

Jesus’ use of the word “dogs” here was in no way meant as a derogatory put down. Our Lord was only using the vernacular of His day which this lady would understand so as not to be insulted. That’s why she answered in such a coy and respectful way. One polemic Jewish writer finds this exchange between Jesus and the non-Jewish woman a great opportunity to go ad hominem on the Master: “Now, with regard to Jesus’ answer…that He came to the world only to forgive the transgressions of Jewish sinners, why did He cause them to sin and to stumble and to be blinded if He really came to forgive and pardon Israel (for they did indeed stumble as a result of his death)? Was there no other nation He could cause to stumble except the one which He had come to save and redeem? Moreover, regarding His statement to the Canaanite woman that ‘it is not righto steal bread from the children and give it to the dogs,’ what He must have meant by this metaphor is, ‘It is not right that I should steal the kindness which I have to perform for the Jews and give it to other nations,’ i.e., to this Canaanite who is called a dog.”¹³

It is crystal clear that this critic completely dismisses God’s promise to Eve, Abraham, and to others spoken of by Isaiah, all because he is unable or unwilling to accept Jesus as the one God talked about. We find that, for the most part, Jews did not consider non-Jews as human beings equal to themselves, but more closely identified them with animals. Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai once said: “Contact with the graves of Gentiles do not defile us, for it is written, And you my flock, the flock of my pastures, are men;¹⁴ only you are designated as ‘men’.”¹⁵ One Jewish commentator puts this same thought in a cryptic way by saying: “Another reason why God created only a single human being is to foster peace among His creatures, none being able to say that they are superior to others by birth, seeing they all are traced back to the same Adam. Yet another reason is to prevent the Gentiles from claiming that there are several Divine powers competing with one another in the heavens.”¹⁶

To make sense out of all this, the commentator mentions in the previous paragraph that only Jews are human beings. Therefore, when the same God made Gentiles, He did so as part of the animal world. This would bar Gentiles from claiming they also were made by a God in His image. Such thinking would require more than one God. Another venerable Rabbi made these comments on the subject: “Since the idol-worshiping nations are likened to bulls, rams, and goats, as it is said “Many bulls surrounded me, etc.,”¹⁷ and Scripture states: “The ram that you saw, the one with horns, represents the kings of Media and Persia,”¹⁸ and Scripture states: “And the he-goat is the king of Greece.”¹⁹ And the Israelites are likened to young doves, as it is said: “My dove, in the clefts of the rock.”²⁰ Therefore, he divided the animals, as an allusion that the nations will gradually perish. ‘But He did not divide the bird,’²¹ as an allusion that Israel will exist forever.”²²

This same thought was echoed in the writings of another esteemed Rabbi.²³ And in a paraphrase of a psalm of David we read: “The Gentiles have surrounded me, who are like many bulls; the princes of Mathnan have hemmed me in. They open their mouths at me like a roaring and ravaging lion.”²⁴ And one Rabbi, when talking about a female Canaanite maid, has even less kind words to say: “The Scripture say: ‘ You stay here with the donkey’²⁵ – these people are like donkeys.”²⁶ Another Jewish translator gives a more graphic rendering of this verse: “Sit here with the donkey.”²⁷ But Rabbi Eliezer takes it one step further by saying: “Every child in the womb of a heathen bondmaid is like the young in an animal’s womb.”²⁸ Not only that, but in the footnotes they explain: “Children born to Gentile woman have no kinship with the male father.”²⁹

But the one that comes the closest, is an old Jewish story told by Rabbi Abraham Saba, one that Jesus may have been familiar with. It reads like this: “A king provided a dinner for the children of his house; as long as they do his will they can eat their meal with the king, and he gives to the dogs the part of bones to gnaw; but when the children of the house do not do the king’s pleasure, he gives the dogs the dinner, and the bones to them: even so: while the Israelites do the will of their Lord, they eat at the king’s table, and the feast is provided for them, and they of their own will give the bones to the Gentiles; but when they do not do the will of their Lord, lo! the feast is, ‘for the dogs‘, and the bones are theirs””³⁰