The Syrophoenician Woman

Mark 7:24-30

The Story of the Syrophoenician (Canaanite) woman contains an unusual and difficult to understand saying of Jesus: "It is not right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

This pericope begins with a journey of Jesus from Galilee to a gentile area of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but He could not escape notice. Soon, a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at His feet. She begged Him to drive the demons out of her daughter. Jesus told her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to dogs." She replied, "Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps." Jesus said to her, "For saying this you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter."

Examining the biblical text may offer some clues to understanding the story of the Syrophoenician woman. The term "Greek" doesn't mean a native of Greece, but rather a gentile or non-Jew. This description prepares for the coming dialogue which depends on her daughter's non-Jewishness. Emphasis falls on Jesus' reply when she asks Him to cast out the demon from her daughter. "Let the children (i.e.: My Jewish disciples) be satisfied first (i.e.: be fully taught)."

This answer of Jesus carried the following implication: that the woman's daughter may receive the salvific benefits of God's Kingdom at a later time. But the next clause, "For it isn't good (or beautiful in the sense of fitting) to take bread of the children (i.e.: the time and effort needed to teach My disciples) and cast it to the little dogs (i.e.: to gentile children like the woman's daughter), makes the delay very indefinite, that in effect Jesus is denying the woman's request.

According to Gundry, granting the woman' s request would deprive the Jewish nation of nothing but would deprive the disciples of private teaching, Jesus' admiration of the woman's cleverness in conceiving that a little gentile "dog" might enjoy a little "crumb" of his mighty power at the same time some little Jewish "children" are enjoying a full portion leads him to respond, "On account of this saying, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter."

Those who take the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:35-41 ) as symbolic of filling the Jews with the bread of salvation and the feeding of the 4,000 (8:1-19) as filling of gentiles with it can hardly take v.27a "let the children be fed first" as correlatively redactional, for v.27a implies that the Jews have not yet been filled, whereas (6:42) has said that the five thousand, supposedly representing the Jews, have been filled, the idea of Jews first, then gentiles derives from Jesus' common Jewish heritage.

According to Raymond Brown: "It is scarcely accidental that Mark places in sequence a controversy over food and the surprising faith of gentiles who come spontaneously to Jesus, they were two major issues, that divided early Christians. Some have been offered by Jesus' response in 7:27."

Conclusion And Remarks

Mark wrote his gospel according to historians around the time of the Roman-Jewish war which ended with the destruction of the second temple around 70 C.E. Even though there was gentile-Christian community, the majority of Christ's followers were Jewish-Christian. Therefore when Jesus answered the woman: "Let the children be fed first", the statement carried in it two points: a) a priority for the Jewish community to be cared for and taught before the gentile converts; b) the inclusion of gentiles with Jesus teaching and later did. There is theology adopted by Mark when that statement of Jesus was said, to win both communities for now and the future.

When Jesus says: "It is not right to take food of children and throw it to dogs." If we take the word "dogs" literally and analyze it in the context of his saying the following personal conclusion will be deduced. Dogs represent astray animals, with no directions and no benefit coming out of them, (since domestic dogs were not a tradition in Palestine at that time) therefore the dogs represent the godless gentile who are astray with no guidance, no spirit and no direction. It is well known that after you train the dogs and teach them, they can comprehend and they can excel. And might even surpass the intelligence of the sheep whom they guard usually with the shepherd. (Sheep can get lost but dogs seldom do).