MPV Commentary

The Syrophoenician Woman and Her Daughter--A Deaf and Dumb Man Healed

Jesus arose from there and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. The two great Phoenician seaports are in view here, but Jesus' immediate object was to avoid the wrath of the Pharisees after his withering exposure of their traditional religion.

He entered an house, wanting no one to know it because he had not come there to minister to Gentiles. However, though not sent to the lost sheep of the Gentile world, he did not hinder them from coming to him or put them away when they did come, as this incident was designed to show.

But Jesus' fame had already spread from Galilee to this region (Mark 3:8; Luke 6:17), and a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him. She fell at his feet and begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter.

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, so called as inhabiting the Phoenician tract of Syria. Matthew (Matthew 15:22) calls her "a woman of Canaan," a more intelligible description to his Jewish readers. She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

Jesus said nothing in response, not because he was unwilling to help her but to test and whet her faith, patience, and perseverance. His disciples came and begged him to send her away, thinking she was troublesome with her importunate cries. But Jesus answered them, saying, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24).

The woman's response is a model for us today. She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Jesus was pleased with her faith and replied, "For this saying you may go; the demon has left your daughter."

And when she came to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. The wonderfulness of this case in all its features has been felt in every age of the Church, and the balm it has administered, and will yet administer, to millions will be known only in that day that shall reveal the secrets of all hearts.

Deaf and Dumb Man Healed

Again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, Jesus came unto the Sea of Galilee. The manuscripts in favor of this reading are weighty, while the versions agreeing with it are among the most ancient; and all the best critical editors and commentators adopt it.

On returning from these coasts of Tyre, He passed through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis, crossing the Jordan, therefore, and approaching the lake on its east side. Here Matthew introduces some particulars, from which we learn that it was only one of a great number. "And Jesus," says that Evangelist (Matthew 15:29-31), "departed from thence, and came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain"...

Mark singles out one case whose cure had something peculiar in it. They bring unto him one that was deaf, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. But Jesus will deal with this case in His own way.

He took him aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his ears. To address the impotent man's indistinct articulation arising from his deafness, our Lord substitutes symbolical actions upon each of the organs affected. He spit and touched his tongue, moistening the man's parched tongue with saliva from His own mouth.

Looking up to heaven, he sighed over the wreck which sin had brought about, and the malice of the devil in deforming the fair features of God's original creation. And saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

Straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. The cure was thus alike instantaneous and perfect.

Jesus charged them that they should tell no man into this very region He had sent the man out of whom had been cast the legion of devils to proclaim what the Lord had done for him (Mark 5:19). Now He will have them "tell no man." But in the former case there was no danger of obstructing His ministry by "blazing the matter" (Mark 1:45), as He Himself had left the region; whereas now He was sojourning in it.

But the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it. They could not be restrained; nay, the prohibition seemed only to whet their determination to publish His fame.

And were beyond measure astonished, saying, "He hath done all things well." Reminding us of the words of the first creation (Genesis 1:31, Septuagint), upon which we are thus not unsuitably thrown back, for Christ's work is in the truest sense a new creation. He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak...