Mark 7:25-30 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:… She had often heard her people characterized as "dogs." It was a title by which the Jews, whose first care it was to hate, to mock, and to curse all besides themselves, disgraced the Gentiles. The noble nature of the dog finds no recognition in the history of the Old or New Testaments. Among Jews dogs were regarded as wild, savage, undomesticated animals, which prowled about cities as the scavengers of the streets, with no masters and no homes. But Jesus, by the use of a diminutive not to be expressed in English, softened not a little the harshness of the comparison, implying that the dogs to which He likened this woman were not excluded from the house. And the woman with the instincts of a Gentile, with whom the dog was not only a favourite but an almost necessary companion, having its place at the domestic hearth, turned it at once into an argument in her favour, and replied, "Yes, Lord, I accept the position; for the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs." What she meant to convey must have been something like this: "I do not deny that the Jews are the first object of your care and ministration. They are the true children, and I am far from asking that they should ever be superseded in their rightful prerogative; but the very fact that you should speak of their being first fed seems to imply that our turn will come after them, and your mitigation of the harsh unfeeling byword which the Jews adopt, encourages me to persevere in my petition. Let the full board, then — the plentiful bread of grace — be reserved for the Jewish children; but only let me be as the dog under the table, to partake of the crumbs of mercy and comfort that fall from it." (H. M. Luckock, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: |
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