We have no reason to think that at any time during His earthly
ministry our Lord overpassed the limits of the Holy Land; not even when
He ‘departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.’ It was only
‘into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,’ as St. Mark expressly tells
us (vii. 24), that He went; and even St. Matthew’s words need not, and
certainly here do not, mean more than that He approached the confines of
that heathen land. The general fitness of things, and more this his
own express words on this very occasion, ‘I am not sent but unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ combine to make it unlikely that
He had now brought His healing presence to any other but the people of
the Covenant; and, moreover, when St. Matthew speaks of the ‘woman of
Canaan’ as coming out of that district, or ‘of the same coasts,’
he clearly shows that he did not intend to describe the Lord as having
more than drawn close to the skirts of that profane land.
Being there, He ‘entered into a house, and would have no man know
it:’ but, as ‘the ointment bewrayeth itself,’ so He whose ‘Name is
like ointment poured out,’ on the present occasion ‘could not be hid;’
and among those attracted by its sweetness was a woman of that country—‘a
woman of Canaan,’ as St. Matthew terms her, ‘a Greek, a Syrophoenician,’
as St. Mark has it, by the first term indicating her religion, that it
was not Jewish, but heathen; by the second, the stock of which she came,
being even that accursed race once doomed of God to a total excision, root
and branch (Deut. vii. 2), but of which some branches had been spared by
those first generations of Israel that should have destroyed all (Judges
ii. 2, 3). Everything, therefore, was against her; yet this everything
did not prevent her from drawing nigh, from seeking, and, as we shall presently
see, from obtaining, the boon that her soul longed after. She had
heard of the mighty works which the Saviour of Israel had done: for already
His fame had gone through all Syria; so that they brought unto Him, besides
others sick, ‘those which were possessed with devils, and those which were
lunatics, and He healed them’ (Matt. iv. 24). And she has a boon
to ask for her daughter,--or say rather for herself, so entirely has she
made her daughter’s misery her own: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou
Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil;’ just as
on a later occasion the father of the lunatic child exclaims, ‘Have compassion
on us, and help us’ (Mark ix. 22).
But she finds Him very different from that which report had described
Him to her. That had extolled Him as the merciful and gracious, not
breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax, inviting every
weary and afflicted soul to draw nigh and find rest in Him. He, who
of Himself had anticipated the need of others (John v. 6), withdrew Himself
from hers; ‘He answered her not a word.’ ‘The Word has no
word; the fountain is sealed; the physician withholds his remedies’ (Chrysostom);
until at last the disciples, wearied out with her persistent entreaties,
and to all appearance more merciful than their Lord, themselves ‘came
and besought Him, saying, Send her away.’ Yet was there in truth
a root of selfishness out of which this compassion of theirs grew; for
why is He to satisfy her and dismiss her? ‘for she crieth after
us;’ she is making a scene; she is drawing on them unwelcome observation.
Theirs is that heartless granting of a request, whereof most of us are
conscious; when it is granted out of no love to the suppliant, but to leave
undisturbed his selfish ease from whom at length it is extorted--a granting
such as his who gave, but gave saying, ‘lest by her continual coming she
weary me’ (Luke xviii. 5). Here, as so often, behind a seeming severity
lurks the real love, while under the mask of a greater easiness selfishness
lies hid.
These intercessors meet with no better fortune than the suppliant herself;
and Christ stops their mouths with words which might appear to set the
seal of hopelessness on her suit: ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel’ (cf. Matt. x. 5, 6). But in what sense
was this true? All prophecy which went before declared that in Him,
the promised Seed, not one nation only, but all nations of the earth, should
be blest (Rom. xv. 9-12). He Himself declared, ‘Other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold, them also must I bring, and they shall hear
my voice’ (John x. 16). It has happened before now with the founders
of false religions that, as success beckoned them on, the circle of their
vision has widened; and they who meant at first but to give a faith to
their tribe or nations, have aspired at last to give one to the world.
But here all must have been always known; the world-embracing reach of
His mission, and of the faith which He should found, was contemplated by
Christ from the beginning. In what sense, then, and under what limitations,
could He say with truth, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel’? Clearly it must be in His own personal ministry
[Augustine (Sermon lxxvii. 2); Jerome (Commentary on Matthew)]. That
ministry, for wise purposes in the counsels of God, should be confined
to His own nation; and every departure from this, the prevailing rule of
His whole earthly activity, was and was clearly marked as, an exception.
Here and there, indeed, there were preludes of the larger mercy which was
in store [Calvin], first drops of that gracious shower which should one
day water the whole earth. Before, however, the Gentiles should glorify
God for His mercy, He must first be ‘a minister of the circumcision for
the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers’ (Rom.
xv. 8, 9). It was only, as it were, by a rebound from them that the
grace was to light upon the heathen world; while yet that issue, which
seemed thus accidental was laid deep in the deepest counsels of God (Acts
xiii. 44-49; Rom. xi.). In Christ’s reply, as St. Mark gives it,
‘Let the children first be filled,’ the refusal does not appear
so absolute and final, and a glimpse is vouchsafed of the manner in which
the blessing might yet pass on to others, when as many of these, ‘the
children,’ as were willing, should have accepted it. But there,
too, the present repulse is absolute. The time is not yet; others
intermeddle not with the meal, till the children have had enough.
The woman hears the repulse which the disciples who had ventured to
plead for her receive; but is not daunted or disheartened thereby.
Hitherto she had been crying after the Lord, and at a distance; but now,
instead of being put still farther from Him, ‘came she and worshipped
Him, saying, Lord, help me.’ On this He breaks the silence which
hitherto He has maintained towards her; but it is with an answer more discomfortable
than was even the silence itself: ‘He answered and said, It is not meet
to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs.’ ‘The children’
are, of course, the Jews, ‘the children of the kingdom’ (cf. Matt. viii.
12). He who spoke so sharply to them, speaks thus honourably of them;
nor is there any contradiction in this; for here He is speaking of the
position which God has given them in His kingdom; there, of the manner
in which they have realized that position. On the other hand, extreme
contempt was involved in the title of ‘dog’ given to any one, the
nobler characteristics of this animal, although by no means unknown to
antiquity, being never brought out in Scripture (see Deut. xxiii. 18; Job
xxx. 1; I Sam. xvii. 43; xxiv. 14; II Sam iii.8; xvi. 9; II Kin. viii.
13; Matt. vii. 6; Phil. iii. 2; Rev. xxii. 15).
There are very few for whom this would not have been enough; few who,
even if they had persevered thus far, would not now at length have turned
away in anger or despair. Not so, however, this heathen woman; she,
like the centurion, and under circumstances more trying, is mighty in faith;
and from the very word which seems to make most against her draws with
the ready wit of faith an argument in her own behalf. She entangles
the Lord, Himself most willing to be so entangled, in His own speech; she
takes the sword out of His own hand, with which to overcome Him; ‘Truth,
Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’
Upon these words Luther, who has dwelt on all the circumstances of this
little history with a peculiar love, and is never weary of extolling the
mighty faith of this woman, exclaims, ‘Was not that a master stroke?
she snares Christ in His own words.’ And oftentimes he sets this
Canaanitish woman before troubled and fainting hearts, that they may learn
from her how to wring a Yea, from God’s Nay; or rather, to learn how to
hear the deep-hidden Yea, which many times lurks under His seeming Nay.
‘Like her, thou must give God right in all He says against thee, and yet
must not stand off from praying, till thou overcomest as she overcame,
till thou hast turned the very charges made against thee into arguments
and proofs of thy need, till thou, too, hast taken Christ in His own words.’
The rendering of her answer in our Translation is not, however, altogether
satisfactory. For, indeed, she accepts the Lord’s declaration, not
immediately to make exception against the conclusions which He draws from
it, but to show how in that very declaration is involved the granting
of her petition. ‘Saidest Thou dogs? it is well; I accept
the title and the place; for the dogs have a portion of the meal,--not
the first, not the children’s portion, but a portion still,--the crumbs
which fall from the masters’ table. In this very putting of the case,
Thou bringest us heathen, Thou bringest me, within the circle of
the blessings which God, the great householder, is ever dispensing to His
family. We also belong to His household, though we occupy but the
lowest place therein. According to Thine own showing, I am not wholly
an alien, and therefore I will abide by this name, and will claim all which
in it is included.’ By the ‘masters’ she does not intend the
Jews, which is the mistake of Chrysostom and many more; for thus the whole
image would be deranged and disturbed—they are ‘the children’—but
the great Heavenly householder Himself. She uses the plural ‘masters’
to correspond with the plural ‘dogs,’ which Christ had used just
before; compare ‘sons’ to correspond with ‘kings’ at Matt. xvii. 26; while
yet it is the one Son only, the Only-begotten of the Father, who is intended
there. He who fills all things living with plenteousness spreads
a table for all flesh; and all that depend on Him are satisfied from it,
each in his own order and place, the children at the table, and the dogs
beneath it. There lies in her statement something like the Prodigal’s
petition, ‘Make me as one of thy hired servants—a recognition of diverse
relations, some closer, some more distant, in which divers persons stand
to God—yet all blest, who, whether in a nearer or remoter station, receive
their meat from Him.
She has conquered at last. She, who before heard only those words
of a seeming contempt, now hears words of a most gracious commendation—words
whose like are addressed but to one other in all the Gospel history: ‘O
woman, great is thy faith!’ He who showed at first as though
He would have denied her the smallest boon, now opens to her the full treasure-house
of His grace, and bids her help herself, to carry away what she will: ‘Be
it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ He had shown to her for a while,
as Joseph showed to his brethren, the aspect of severity; but, like Joseph,
He could not maintain it long; —or rather He would not maintain it an instant
longer than was needful, and after that word of hers, that mighty word
of an undaunted faith, it was needful no more: ‘For this saying go thy
way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.’
Like the centurion at Capernaum (Matt. viii. 13), like the nobleman
at Cana (John iv. 53), she made proof that His word was as potent spoken
far off, as near. She offered in her faith a channel of communication
between her distant child and Christ. With one hand of that faith
she laid hold of Him in whom all healing grace was stored, with the other
on her suffering daughter—herself a living conductor by which the power
of Christ might run, like an electric flash, from Him to the object of
her love. ‘And when she was come to her house, she found the devil
gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed,’ weak and exhausted,
as these last words would imply, from the paroxysms of the spirit’s going
out—unless, indeed, they indicate that she was now taking that quiet rest,
which hitherto the evil spirit had not allowed. It will then answer
to the ‘clothed and in his right mind’ (Luke viii. 35) of another who had
been similarly tormented.
The question remains, Why this bitterness was not spared her,
why the Lord should have presented Himself under so different an
aspect to her, and to most other suppliants? Sometimes He anticipated
their needs, ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ (John v. 6); or if not so, He who
was waiting to be gracious required not to be twice asked for His blessings.
Why was it that in this case, to use the words of an old divine, Christ
‘stayed long, wrestling with her faith, and shaking and trying whether
it were fast-rooted’ or no? Doubtless because He knew that it was
a faith which would stand the proof, and that she would come out victorious
from this sore trial; and not only so, but with a stronger, mightier, purer
faith than if she had borne away her blessing merely for the asking.
Now she has learned, as then she never could have learned, ‘that men ought
always to pray, and not to faint;’ that when God delays a boon, He does
not therefore deny it. She has learned the lesson which Moses must
have learned when ‘the Lord met him, and sought to kill him’ (Exodus iv.
24); she has won the strength which Jacob won from his wrestling, resemblance
between this history and that of Jacob (Genesis xxxii. 24-32). There,
as here, we note the same persevering struggle on the one side, the same
persevering refusal on the other; there, as here, the stronger is at last
overcome by the weaker. God Himself yields to the might of faith
and prayer; for a later prophet, interpreting that mysterious struggle,
tells us the weapons which the patriarch wielded: ‘he wept and made supplication
unto Him,’ connecting with this the fact that ‘he had power over the angel,
and prevailed’ (Hos. xii. 3, 4). The two histories, indeed, only
stand out in their full resemblance when we keep in mind that the Angel
there, the Angel of the Covenant, was no other than that Word, who, now
incarnate, ‘blest this woman at last, as He had blest at length Jacob at
Peniel—in each case so rewarding a faith which had said, ‘I will not let
Thee go, except Thou bless me.’
Yet, when we thus speak of man overcoming God, we must never, of course,
for an instant lose sight of this, that the power whereby he overcomes
the resistance of God, is itself a power supplied by God.
All that is man’s is the faith, or the emptiness of self, with the hunger
after God, which enable him to appropriate and make so largely his own
the fulness and power of God; so that here also that word comes true, ‘Blessed
are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Thus
when St. Paul speaks of himself under an image which rested originally
on Jacob’s struggle, if there was not a direct allusion to it in the Apostle’s
mind, as striving for the Colossians (Col. i. 29), striving, that
is, with God in prayer (see iv. 12), he immediately adds, ‘according to
His working, which worketh in me mightily.’
We may observe, in conclusion, that we have three ascending degrees
of faith, as it manifests itself in the breaking through hindrances which
would keep from Christ, in the paralytic (Mark ii. 4); in the blind man
at Jericho (Mark x. 48); and in this woman of Canaan. The paralytic
broke through the outward hindrances, the obstacles of things merely external;
blind Bartimaeus through the hindrances opposed by his fellow-men; but
this woman, more heroically than all, through apparent hindrances even
from Christ Himself. These, in all their seeming weaknesses, were
yet three mighty ones, not of David, but of David’s Son and Lord, who broke
through opposing hosts, until they could draw living water from wells of
salvation (2 Sam. xxiii. 16).
