The Bible Says
Mark 7:24-30 Meaning

The parallel gospel account for Mark 7:24-30 is found in Matthew 15:21-28.

In Mark 7:24-30, Jesus travels to the region of Tyre, where a Gentile woman persistently begs Him to cast a demon out of her daughter, and though He initially tests her with a seemingly dismissive response, He ultimately honors her faith and grants her request.

Mark records that after Pharisees from Jerusalem went to Galilee to find fault with Him and tried (but failed) to denounce Him as a religious law-breaker (Mark 7:1-23), Jesus departed Galilee and headed north.

Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre (v 24a).

The expression went away from there refers to the district of Galilee, where Jesus was during the earlier events of this chapter. Galilee was located at the northern end of Israel and was predominantly Jewish.

The region of Tyre was northeast of Galilee and was predominantly Gentile. Tyre was a major city in the district of Syria. It was a port town located on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre was the dominant city of this region. Because Mark’s core audience was Gentile (Roman), they may have taken particular interest to see how Jesus interacted with non-Jews like themselves.

Matthew’s account also mentions the city of “Sidon” as being in the same Syrian district (Matthew 15:21).

Tyre and Sidon were ancient coastal cities north of Galilee along the Mediterranean Sea, in what is now Lebanon. Sidon was founded by the Canaanites (Genesis 10:15, 10:19, 1 Chronicles 1:13), and Joshua’s generation failed to conquer them (Joshua 11:8, 19:29, Judges 1:31). From the time of Israel’s kings to the days of Christ, shipping was a major industry there (Isaiah 23:2). Both cities were linked with the Philistines (Jeremiah 47:4, Joel 3:4) and the Phoenicians, and they exerted a corrupting influence on Israel, drawing them into false worship (Judges 10:6).

In Jesus’s time, the port cities of Tyre and Sidon were part of the Roman district of Syria, and were inhabited by people of Canaanite descent with a pagan culture. In the present day, this region is called “Lebanon.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus cited Tyre and Sidon as examples to shame the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida for failing to repent despite the many miracles He had performed in their midst:

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you."
(Matthew 11:21-22)

Neither Mark nor Matthew (who also records this journey) explicitly state why Jesus withdrew to this Gentile district. But Mark does indicate that Jesus wanted to be alone when He went away from the district of Galilee to the region of Tyre:

And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice (v 24b).

It seems Jesus went to Tyre to escape notice and seek solitude. He wanted to get away from the distractions of the crowds and avoid disturbances from the religious leaders. Jesus entered a house in the region of Tyre and He wanted no one to know that He was staying there.

Maybe Jesus wanted to avoid unnecessary danger to preserve His life. He had done similar things before-once by staying away from Judea because the Jews sought to kill Him (John 7:1) and another time by withdrawing from the Pharisees (Matthew 12:14-15). Jesus may have been doing the same here to avoid further conflict with the Pharisees from Jerusalem until His proper time.

Maybe Jesus wanted to have time to teach His disciples and prepare them for their larger mission after He returned to heaven. Jesus had recently tried to spend time alone with His disciples upon their return from their two-by-two missions (Mark 6:30-32) and was unable to do so because the crowds followed Him (Mark 6:33-34). Jesus’s temporary relocation to the region of Tyre may have been another attempt to reclaim that lost time.

The context of Mark seems to indicate it was more likely the second reason-to have time alone, rather than the first-to escape danger. This is because when He had entered a house and wanted no one to know it-yet He could not escape notice.

People in the region of Tyre noticed that Jesus, the compassionate miracle worker, was staying in their area.

But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet (v 25).

Mark reports that there was a local woman who had heard of Jesus and His miraculous powers. And after hearing that He was currently staying in her region, she immediately came to Jesus and fell at His feet.

The reason this woman came so quickly to Jesus was because she had a desperate need. Her little daughter had an unclean spirit-a demon that possessed and tormented her. From other accounts in the Bible, unclean spirits not only caused great spiritual anguish to the person they controlled, they also caused great physical harm to others and themselves (Mark 5:5, 9:17-18).

Because her little daughter was tormented by this unclean spirit, this woman came immediately to Jesus and fell at His feet to beg Him to free her child. The fact that this woman fell at His feet indicates that she was both worshipping Jesus and begging Him to help her little daughter.

There was urgency as well as desperation in the woman’s act of coming to Jesus. The woman may have realized that Jesus was her little daughter’s only hope of being freed from the unclean spirit and that this might be the only time (Jesus did not appear in the region of Tyre often) she would be near enough to Jesus to make this request.

Mark points out that this woman was not Jewish and emphasized her faithful persistence:

Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race (v 26a).

This woman was not only a Gentile, but Mark specifies that she was of the Syrophoenician race.

When Mark refers to the woman as Syrophoenician, he is identifying her as a Gentile of Phoenician descent who lived in the Roman province of Syria-hence the compound term: Syro-Phoenician.

This label highlights her ethnic, cultural, and geographic identity as entirely outside the Jewish covenant community.

By contrast, Matthew describes the same woman as “a Canaanite” (Matthew 15:22). By Jesus’s day, the term “Canaanite” was already an ancient biblical term tied to Israel’s ancient enemies in the land prior to the conquest under Joshua (1450 B.C.). Matthew's term emphasizes the woman’s religious and ancestral distance from Israel, while Mark’s term frames her identity in what was at that time contemporary Roman terms familiar to his primarily Gentile audience.

Both labels emphasize the woman’s outsider status which makes this encounter remarkable, and her inclusion in the Messiah’s ministry is a powerful sign of the gospel's eventual reach beyond Israel.

This woman came to Jesus because she knew He had the power to heal her little daughter and cast the unclean spirit out of her. But initially, Jesus did not grant her urgent request.

And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter (v 26b).

She was persistent. This woman did not stop asking Jesus to help her daughter despite His continual negative responses; She kept asking.

Matthew’s Gospel offers a more detailed account of the Gentile mother’s pleas. The woman was constantly “crying out, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed’” (Matthew 15:22).

She called Jesus, “Lord” (Matthew 15:22), which recognized His authority over her daughter’s condition and the demon that tormented her. The woman also called Jesus, “Son of David” (Matthew 15:22), which was a distinctly Jewish Messianic title. Both titles demonstrated that this woman had faith in who Jesus was and not only His miraculous power.

Matthew also writes that as she kept imploring Him to intervene on behalf of her daughter, that Jesus did not verbally respond to her request.

“But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, ‘Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.’”
(Matthew 15:23)

While Jesus did not verbally reply, the woman’s continual crying out bothered His disciples to the point that they asked Him to send her away.

Finally, Jesus responded:

And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (v27).

His reply was a firm denial of this Gentile mother’s desperate request.

In this instance, the children represented the Jews, the rightful heirs of the kingdom, and the bread symbolized the king’s blessings and mercy. The term dogs was a harsh reference to the Gentiles.

Jesus was illustrating that just as a father would not take his own children’s food and throw it to dogs, the Jewish Messiah would not withhold the kingdom’s blessings from the Jews and give them instead to the Gentiles.

Matthew records that before Jesus gave this analogy, He first said to her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24b), to which the woman “came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’” (Matthew 15:25b). And it was then that Jesus explained that it was not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs (Matthew 15:26b).

Jesus was a Jewish Messiah who was sent first to save the Jews, then the Gentiles. At the time Jesus encountered this Syrophoenician woman and said these things to her, His mission was to save Israel (at that time He had not yet been rejected by His people as the Messiah). It is also possible that as Matthew may have been the first gospel to be written, that the good news of Jesus was still an overwhelmingly Jewish movement and that it had not yet taken off among the Gentiles.

Mark, writing to the Gentiles (probably Roman), omits Jesus’s initial response that was recorded by Matthew-namely, the reply about how He was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24b), because his gospel account was written for the sake of the Gentiles, and by the time it was published, the gospel of Jesus was already beginning to thrive among the Gentiles. Had Mark included this statement, it may have confused his Gentile audience and may have caused them to wrongly doubt that Jesus and the gospel were offered to them too.

In summary, it appears that the reason why one gospel included Jesus’s statement-“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24b)-and the other excluded it was because Matthew recorded what Jesus said and meant in that moment, for the sake of his Jewish audience, and Mark omitted it because this statement’s meaning had largely changed by the time his account was written, and would have likely confused and discouraged his Gentile audience.

Both Matthew and Mark record the woman’s reply to Jesus’s initial denial of her request to help her little daughter. It is one of the Bible’s more memorable comebacks:

But she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs” (v 28).

Her response was respectful, clever, sincere, and persuasive. She did not react with offense, or dispute Jesus’s words. Instead, she agreed, saying, “Yes, Lord, it’s true that the Jewish Messiah should not discard the blessings meant for the Jews to someone like me, a Gentile.” But building on Jesus’s analogy, she added that even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs, implying that surely some crumbs of mercy remained that could heal her daughter.

Jesus was touched by her reply, recognizing her strong faith. In Matthew’s account, He said:

“‘O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed at once.”
(Matthew 15:28)

Mark records:

And He said to her, “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left (vv 29-30).

Apparently, the woman’s demon-possessed child was back at home and was not physically present when Jesus healed her. The woman believed Jesus and returned home and found that Jesus had cast out the unclean spirit from her little daughter, because she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon which had been tormenting her had left.

This event (and others) shows that Gentiles sometimes recognized and accepted Jesus more readily than the very Jews He came to save.

Jesus’ visit to the region of Tyre parallels the incident He mentioned in Luke when speaking to His hometown in Nazareth. After their rejection of Him, Jesus pointed out that during Elijah’s time, though there were many widows in Israel, Elijah was sent to help a widow in Sidon (Luke 4:23-30). This example was met with hostility.

As the Apostle John notes:

"He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him."
(John 1:11)

This irony also reflects how sinners were often more willing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah than the religious leaders were.

"Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you."
(Matthew 21:31b)

All of this might be an application of how Jesus says later in Mark that “if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35).

Mark 7:24-30 and the next passage of scripture, Mark 7:31-37, both highlight different ways Jesus blessed Gentiles during His ministry as the Jewish Messiah. This is a foreshadowing of God’s promise to redeem the Gentiles embedded in God’s promise to Abraham:

“And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
(Genesis 12:3)

In saying “all the families of the earth,” God includes all Gentiles (everyone who is not Jewish). The blessing to all who live on the earth came through Jesus, the son of David, the anointed Jewish Messiah who died for the sins of the entire world (John 3:16, Colossians 2:14). Just as this Gentile woman believed, so all who believe on Jesus, lifted upon a cross, will be granted eternal life (John 3:14-15).

As Jesus says near the Bible’s end:

“Then He [Jesus] said to me, ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.’”
(Revelation 21:6)

This Gentile woman had a thirst, believed Jesus would meet it, and He did.

The Apostle Paul also asserted to the Gentiles in Athens that even those who barely know anything, those who are spiritually blind, can still “grope” for God, like a blind man seeking his way, and “find Him.” This is because “He is not far from each one of us”:

“that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;”
(Acts 17:27)

Jesus came for the Jews first, but as this passage demonstrates, He also came for all people.