Mark 7:27

But he wanted to see how strongly she believed in him. So, suggesting that he should help the Jews first and not the non-Jews whom some Jews called dogs [MET], he spoke to her saying, “First let the children eat all they want, because it is not good for someone to take the food the mother has prepared for the children and then throw it to the little dogs.”

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

In Context

26This woman was not a Jew. Her ancestors came from Greece country, but she was born in the region around Phoenicia town in Syria district. She pleaded with Jesus that he expel the evil spirit from her daughter.

28But to show that she believed that non-Jews could also receive help from God [MET], she replied to him, “Sir, what you say is correct, but even the little dogs, which lie under the table, eat the crumbs that the children drop.”

Read all of Mark 7

Cross References

Matthew 7:6“You do not give holy things to dogs that would ignore those things and attack you [CHI]. You do not throw pearls in front of hogs, because they would just ignore them and trample them. Similarly, do not give precious spiritual truth to people you know will not value it but instead will do evil things to you.”

Matthew 15:23But Jesus did not answer her at all. We disciples came to him, and knowing that the woman was not a Jew, we said to him, “Tell her to leave, because she keeps bothering us by yelling behind us!”

Romans 15:8I want you to remember that Christ helped us Jews [MTY] by what he did, in order to show that God ◄is faithful/does what he says he will do►. That is, his coming as our Messiah fulfilled what God promised to our Jewish ancestors.

Matthew Henry on Mark 7:25-31

The Syrophenician Woman. 24 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into a house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. 25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. 27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the… Read the whole commentary →

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