From that place he went off to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. 25 Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 28 She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30 When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
Jesus leaves Galilee and goes into Gentile territory, to the district of Tyre. He enters a house and tries to remain unknown, but Mark says “he could not escape notice” (v. 24). The movement of the story matters. Mark is placing this encounter in a region where Jews normally did not expect Israel’s Messiah to be sought out, welcomed, or trusted.
The woman who comes to Him is described carefully. Mark says she is “a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth” (v.26). In plain terms, she is not part of the people of Israel. She is a Gentile mother coming to a Jewish teacher for help because her daughter has “an unclean spirit” (v.25). In Mark’s Gospel, “unclean” is not a comment about hygiene. It signals spiritual affliction and separation from wholeness of life before God (Mk. 1:23-27; 5:2-13). The detail also fits what has just happened in the chapter: Jesus has been teaching that uncleanness is not finally about external things but about what comes from within the human heart (Mk. 7:14-23). Now Mark shows Jesus confronting uncleanness at its root by freeing a child from a demon (vv. 29-30).
Mark also emphasizes the woman’s posture and persistence. She hears about Jesus, comes, and “fell at his feet” (v.25). She begs Him to drive the demon out of her daughter (v.26). This is the same basic pattern Mark has shown before: people hear about Jesus, come to Him, and plead for mercy on behalf of someone they love (Mk. 5:22-23). Like Jairus, she comes for a daughter. Like the woman healed of hemorrhage, she approaches Jesus as someone convinced that His power can reach her need (Mk. 5:25-34).
Jesus’ reply can be misunderstood if it is read too quickly. He uses a household image: “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (v.27). In the image, the “children” are the children of Israel, and “first” signals order, not denial. Jesus is using a common household picture. The “children” are fed first at the table, and only afterward would food be given to the “dogs” under the table. In the first-century Jewish setting, “dogs” could be a blunt way Jews spoke about Gentiles. The pattern “first… then” appears in the wider New Testament as a way of describing salvation history: God’s promises are given to Israel and fulfilled in Israel’s Messiah, and then the blessing goes out to the nations (Rom. 1:16; Acts 13:46). Matthew’s parallel account makes the same point directly by placing on Jesus’ lips the statement that His mission is ordered first to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24). Mark’s version conveys the same priority through the table image..
The woman does not argue with the priority. She accepts the image and replies within it: “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps” (v. 28). She does not claim entitlement. She asks for mercy. She also shows that she understands what she is asking: she is not demanding that Israel be displaced; she is asking that God’s goodness overflow. Her reply is faith-filled. Mark has already shown that faith is often expressed precisely by refusing to let fear, shame, or social distance silence a plea for help (Mk. 5:34-36).
Jesus then says, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter” (Mk. 7:29). Then, without Jesus entering the home or touching the child, the girl is delivered. When the woman returns, she finds the child “lying in bed and the demon gone” (v. 30). In Mark, this is the only healing described explicitly as happening at a distance, which underscores the authority of Jesus’ word. It also anticipates what the New Testament will later say about Gentiles being brought near to God’s covenant blessing through Christ (Eph. 2:13), not by geography or ethnicity, but by God’s action and the response of faith.
Mark is not presenting Jesus as abandoning Israel. He is showing that the Messiah of Israel carries Israel’s blessing outward, in the way God promised to Abraham: “in you all the families of the earth shall find blessing” (Gen. 12:3). That outward reach will be made explicit after the Resurrection, when the gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations (Mt. 28:19; Mk. 16:15). Mark is already preparing readers for that horizon by placing this Gentile mother’s faith and her daughter’s deliverance inside Jesus’ public ministry.
Lord Jesus, give me the humility to come to You plainly with my need, and the faith to trust the power of Your word. Amen.
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Sources and References
- The Holy Bible: New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), Mk. 7:24-30.
- The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, Gospel of Mark notes on Mk. 7:24 and Mk. 7:27, p. 78.
- The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, para. 49 on Mk. 7:24-30, p. 612.
- The Navarre Bible: St. Mark, commentary on Mk. 7:24-30, p. 189.
- Paulist Biblical Commentary, commentary on Mk. 7:24-30, p. 995.
- The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, commentary on Mk. 7:24-30, pp. 1260-1261.
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