7:24-30 Christ never put any from him that fell at his feet, which a poor trembling soul may do. As she was a good woman, so a good mother. This sent her to Christ. His saying, Let the children first be filled, shows that there was mercy for the Gentiles, and not far off. She spoke, not as making light of the mercy, but magnifying the abundance of miraculous cures among the Jews, in comparison with which a single cure was but as a crumb. Thus, while proud Pharisees are left by the blessed Saviour, he manifests his compassion to poor humbled sinners, who look to him for children's bread. He still goes about to seek and save the lost.

Mr 7:24-37. The Syroph�nician Woman and Her Daughter—A Deaf and Dumb Man Healed. ( = Mt 15:21-31).

The Syroph�nician Woman and Her Daughter (Mr 7:24-30).

The first words of this narrative show that the incident followed, in point of time, immediately on what precedes it.

24. And from thence he arose, and went into the borders—or "unto the borders."

of Tyre and Sidon—the two great Ph�nician seaports, but here denoting the territory generally, to the frontiers of which Jesus now came. But did Jesus actually enter this heathen territory? The whole narrative, we think, proceeds upon the supposition that He did. His immediate object seems to have been to avoid the wrath of the Pharisees at the withering exposure He had just made of their traditional religion.

and entered into an house, and would have no man know it—because He had not come there to minister to heathens. But though not "sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 15:24), He hindered not the lost sheep of the vast Gentile world from coming to Him, nor put them away when they did come—as this incident was designed to show.

but he could not be hid—Christ's fame had early spread from Galilee to this very region (Mr 3:8; Lu 6:17).