The Gospel of Mark Chapter 7:24-37 The Syrophoenician Woman 7:24 “And from there He arose and went away to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice”: According to Mark’s account, Jesus withdrew into this region in order to have some privacy. Remember, Jesus had been in this region before (Mark 3:7; Luke 6:17). Tyre and Sidon were located about 50 miles south of Beirut, Lebanon. Both these cities were located along the coast and were once part of the ancient Phoenician Empire. They were noted for their luxury and impiety. Matthew says that Jesus withdrew into district of Tyre and Sidon. Mark will note that Jesus is not only on the border, but He did across over, for He will come back through the city of Sidon itself (Mark 7:31). “The entire band needed relaxation from the strenuous activities of the preceding weeks: the evangelization of Galilee, the feeding of the five thousand, the emotional strain after the murder of John the Baptist, the concern about Herod Antipas’ undesirable curiosity about Jesus, the pressure of the Pharisees’ attacks, the unbelief of the people” (Fowler p. 393). 1
7:25 “But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, immediately came and fell at His feet”: 7:26 “Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter”: The woman is called “a Canaanite” (Matthew 15:22), probably due to the fact that Sidon was one of the most ancient of the Canaanite cities, going all the way back to Genesis 10:15-19. “This woman is called, also, a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, Mark 7:26. In ancient times, the whole land, including Tyre and Sidon, was in the possession of the Canaanites, and called Canaan. The Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites. The country, including Tyre and Sidon, was called Phoenicia, or SyroPhoenicia. The Greeks under Alexander the Great took that country, and those cities, in the time of Christ, were Greek cities. This woman was therefore a Gentile, living under the Greek government, and probably speaking the Greek language. She was by birth a Syro-Phoenician, born in that country, and descended, therefore, from the ancient Canaanites. All these names might, with propriety, be given to her” (Barnes Notes) 7:26 “She kept asking”: This woman is urgent and keeps after Jesus. 7:27 “And He was saying to her, ‘Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs’”: This is what Jesus kept telling her and she kept asking Him. Clearly, the “children” are the house of Israel, the “bread” stands for God’s blessings, such as miraculous cures in this instance, and the dogs are the Gentiles. Even though Jesus had not answered her previously (Matthew 15:23), He had been listening and understood her request. This may sound like a cruel statement, but God had spent 2000 years in preparing the Jewish people for the Messiah, now was not the right time to change the agenda. The Gentiles had lived like dogs and worse! (Romans 1:18-32). And it is not that dogs are never fed; rather, dogs are not permitted to eat before the children. 7:28 “But she answered and said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs’”: She doesn’t argue with Jesus. How many 2
people will miss eternal life because they can’t get over the fact that God called them a sinner? The road to hell is paved with people who are “offended” about something that the Bible says. This woman is not offended. 1. She understands her place in God’s program. She knows that she isn’t an Israelite; she knows that she is a pagan; she accepts the fact that Jesus’ primary mission is to Israel. She doesn’t argue against any of this. Observe that faith will not get bent out of shape when it encounters a Bible doctrine that requires something uncomfortable of us. 2. She accepts the place of Israel in God’s program; she doesn’t argue that Phoenicians are “just as good as Jews”. Neither does she make the common argument that “I know some Canaanites that are far more spiritual and moral than some Jews”. She doesn’t claim that there are “too many hypocrites among the Israelites”. When a person really understands that they need God’s help, all the arguments cease! 3. She says, “Jesus, I know that I am a dog under the table, but even the dog gets a little crumb now and then”. “Her obvious humility admitted the truth of whatever name Jesus applied to her. Heathenism may be like the dogs, when compared with the children’s place and privileges: but He is their master still, and they are under His table; and when He breaks the bread, there is enough and to spare for them” (Fowler p. 405). She will point out that even before all the needs of the children are met, the dogs are allowed to eat a few crumbs contemporaneously with the feeding of the children. 4. Notice her confidence in Jesus’ power. She did not ask for great things, only a crumb of His power. She pictures the power of Jesus as being so great, that the healing of her daughter is only a crumb of His power. 7:29 “And He said to her, ‘Because of this answer go your way, the demon has gone out of your daughter’”: Matthew records Jesus as saying, “O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish” (15:28): 3
Her faith is called great because: 1. She accepted everything that Jesus taught. 2. She sought to find her place in God’s plan. 3. She didn’t argue with God or walk away offended. 4. She persisted. 5. She was humble. 6. She placed all her hopes and trust in Him. 7. She relied completely upon His will and His mercy. 8. She believed that Jesus could heal at a distance, and that her daughter didn’t even have to be present. 7:30 “And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having departed”: “Note Jesus’ total confidence in His own authority over demons not even present. Without prayers, without orders directed to the demons, without exorcism, by the simple exercise of His mighty will, the distant demon leaves the girl” (Fowler p. 407). Applications 1. Let us try to look for faith in unexpected places. We need to explore modern “Tyre” and “Sidon’s”. 2. God’s silence (15:23) must never be interpreted as indicating His unwillingness to answer our requests. 3. God answers our prayers, however perhaps not according to the time schedules we try to impose upon Him. 4. “So many people pray really because they do not wish to miss a chance. They do not really believe in prayer; they have only the feeling that something might just possibly happen, and they do not wish to miss a chance. This woman came because Jesus was not just a possible helper. He was her only hope” (Barclay p. 136). 5. Agree with the Lord no matter what He says.
4
6. Galilee’s loss, when Jesus left, is the Gentile woman’s gain. Jesus finally did depart from places that rejected Him. “So He finally abandoned them to their own worst enemy, their own unrealized personal and national dreams. He can abandon us too, to our own miserable self!” (Romans 11:17,24) (Fowler p. 411). 7:31 “And again He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of Decapolis”: “From Tyre Jesus proceeded northward to Sidon the thence eastward across the mountains and headwaters of the Jordan to the neighborhood of Damascus. He turned southward and approached the Sea of Galilee on its eastern side. Somewhere amid the mountains on the eastern side He sat down” (McGarvey p. 402). “We thus see that Jesus moves on the outskirts, keeps away from His enemies, secures time for His disciples, and, where He does come into contact with people, helps such as He had not reached before. The Decapolis is the territory of the ten cities, a region to the SE of the lake. The healed demonic (Mark 5:19-20) had filled this country with the great news of what Jesus had done for him” (Lenski p. 308). 7:32 “And they brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they entreated Him to lay His hand upon him”: Observe the detail in this account. The man was deaf, but could speak—yet with difficulty. 7:33 “And He took him aside from the multitude by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva”: That is, Jesus deals with this man privately. This helps explain why Jesus put His fingers into his ears, and touched his tongue with saliva. The fingers in the ears and the saliva are not essential to the healing, for Jesus could heal people with a word. Rather, they are for the benefit of this man. Jesus is using such “signs” for this man, because this man is deaf, and Jesus is clearly letting him know that Jesus is indeed the one who is healing both his ears and his tongue. “As for the signs and the physical media, they were such as he could well understand. Not a mere touch, but an insertion—a sign of the impartation or transference of something
5
from one person to the other, with reference now to the powerless organs of hearing” (The Gospel of Mark, Johnson/Dewelt, p. 211). “Mark emphasizes Jesus’ desire to have personal contact with the people He heals. Here His actions seems to be done to help the man exercise faith---the fingers placed in his ears apparently indicate they were to be unblocked and the salvia on the tongue indicates it was going to be restored to normal use” (Gaebelein p. 684). 7:34 “And looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ That is, ‘Be opened’”: Jesus gave this man another physical sign, that is, He looked up to heaven, to indicate that this was an act that depended upon a heavenly power. “Of course there had been no opportunity, because no possibility, of preaching to the man, and in his ignorance he may easily have supposed that this was some influence of a magical kind” (Johnson p. 211). Jesus is clearly demonstrating to this man that he is being healed by divine power. 7:34 “With a deep sigh”: This word is also found in Romans 8:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:2. “This was no artificial utterance intended for effect: it was a spontaneous utterance of genuine sorrow in sympathy with human suffering. It came from the same source as the tears at the grave of Lazarus. This could be no magician’s performance to him: this was a deed of love” (Johnson p. 211). “Ephphatha”: (EF fa thuh). This is an Aramaic term that means, “Be opened!” Mark here preserves the very word that Jesus used on this occasion. He wants Gentile Christian readers (and all readers in the future) to have the very syllable and the sounds that came from Jesus’ lips in working this miracle. 7:35-37 “And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. 37And they were utterly astonished, saying, "He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." Once again, the healing is immediate, instant and full. This man doesn’t need any speech lessons or therapy; rather, it was as if he had never been deaf. He can 6
speak “plainly”, that is, he isn’t stumbling over words, struggling with pronouncing each word or with grammar. 7:36 “But the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it: His desire to avoid publicly only made Jesus more wonderful in the eyes of the people, and thereby inspired a greater eagerness on their part to tell others about Him. Jesus has only a few months left in His ministry and He does not want the excitement to spread far and wide about His being the Messiah. “The people generally connected earthly, political ideas with that title, the very ideas which Jesus combated (John 6:15). So He did what He could to keep His miracles quiet at this time” (Lenski pp. 312-313). We do see a common human problem in the above verse, that is, people assume that doing something from “good intentions” makes up for disobedience. The people probably thought that they had a better idea than Jesus. Their thinking might have been, “Hey, people need to hear about this man”. But good intentions do not make up for rejecting God’s will. To me, the above is a classic example to show to people who just can’t see how bending the Scriptures “hurts” anyone, especially when they think that they have a better idea about something than is revealed in Scripture 7:37 “And they were utterly astonished, saying, ‘He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak’”: “Their reaction seems almost self-accusatory: ‘Look what we’ve been missing all this time!’ Remember these people had previously asked Jesus to leave their region (Matthew 8:34). Every human weakness to which He turned His attention became strength. Not only did He succeed in curing brilliantly every case brought to Him, but the humble, generous, personally tender way He went about it set Him worlds apart from all others” (Fowler p. 421).
7
8