Mark 7:24-30
The Woman Who Would Not Be Put Off
24Jesus left that place and went to the region of Tyre. Not wanting anyone to know He was there, He entered a house, but was unable to escape their notice.
25Instead, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit soon heard about Jesus, and she came and fell at His feet.
26Now she was a Greek woman of Syrophoenician origin, and she kept asking Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
27“First let the children have their fill,” He said. “For it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
28“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29Then Jesus told her, “Because of this answer, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.”
30And she went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.
Berean Standard Bible
A crowd has just heard him say that nothing from outside a person can make them unclean. Mark's next sentence sends him into the region of Tyre, which is Gentile country, and the order of those two things is doing some work.
Jesus goes into a house there and, Mark says, does not want anyone to know he is in the district. It does not work. Whatever quiet he was after, he does not get it.
A woman hears. Her little daughter has an unclean spirit, and she comes and falls at his feet. Mark places her with unusual care, as a Greek woman, Syrophoenician by birth, and both halves of that are saying the same thing. She is not one of his people, and every reader Mark had knew it.
And she keeps asking. Not one request politely made and answered, but asking, and asking again, the way a person does when the man in front of them is the last door left.
Then he says something that is hard to read out loud at a table.
First let the children have their fill. For it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.
It lands like a slap, and softening it would be dishonest. It sounds like a refusal, it sounds like an insult, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Two things need saying carefully. The first is that the text never tells us why he said it, and people who take this book seriously have read that sentence in different ways for a very long time, so we are not going to invent a motive that makes us comfortable.
The second is one word in the sentence that is easy to go straight past. First. First let the children have their fill. Nobody uses that word about something that is never going to happen. It is a word about order, and order has an after.
She hears it. She does not argue with the order and she does not accept being sent home, and instead she takes the picture he has just made and finds her own place inside it.
Yes, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
She is not asking to be moved up the table. She is saying that when the children have eaten there is enough coming off the edge for her, and she will take it.
Because of this answer, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.
She walks home and finds her child lying on the bed with the thing gone. Mark gives that one sentence and stops.
How We Know
Mark gives this woman three labels in one sentence in verse 26. Greek, meaning her language and culture rather than her birthplace. Syrophoenician, a compound naming both her people and the province. And a mother with a daughter at home.
That is a precise way to place somebody, and it is consistent with the geography around it: verse 24 puts Jesus in the region of Tyre, and verse 31 has him leave by way of Sidon.
Mark names both cities elsewhere without comment, at 3:8 and 7:31, and places them together the way somebody does who knows which coast they sit on.
Questions
1 When somebody tells you no, how long do you usually keep asking? What makes you stop?
AnswerMost of us stop at the first no, or the first hard word, or the first time it gets embarrassing. Get your own answer out on the table before we watch what this woman does with hers.
2 Where is Jesus, and what was he trying to do there?
AnswerIn the region of Tyre, which is Gentile country. He went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. He was trying to be hidden, and a mother with a sick daughter found him anyway.
3 His answer sounds harsh. Does the passage tell us why he said it?
AnswerNo, and that is the honest answer. People who love this book have read that sentence in different ways for centuries, and the text does not settle it. We should not invent a reason to make it go down easier.
4 What does she do with what he said?
AnswerShe does not argue with it and she does not leave. She takes his own picture and finds her place inside it, down under the table with the crumbs. She is not asking to move up. She will take what falls.
What This Means for Us
She kept asking after being told no, and that needs handling carefully, because it is not a technique. Nothing here suggests that pestering God gets results, and plenty of people in this book ask once and receive.
What she did was different. She heard something hard, did not pretend it was easy, and stayed anyway. Some of us stop at the first hard thing: a prayer that went unanswered, a year that went badly, a sentence in the Bible we did not like. Stay in the room. You can keep asking without understanding, and you do not have to pretend the hard part was not hard.
Prayer
Father, some of what you say is hard, and we would rather not admit that. Thank you for a woman who did not walk away. Give us her nerve. When we do not understand you, keep us at the table anyway. Amen.