Passage

Matthew 15.24

Book: Matthew · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

22. And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon. 23. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24. But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

But she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26. And he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. (Matthew 15:22-26, ASV)

WEB

22. Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, you son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” 23. But he answered her not a word. His disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away; for she cries after us.”

24. But he answered, “I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

But she came and worshiped him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26. But he answered, “It is not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” (Matthew 15:22-26, WEB)

KJV

22. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. (Matthew 15:22-26, KJV)

YLT

22. and lo, a woman, a Canaanitess, from those borders having come forth, did call to him, saying, 'Deal kindly with me, Sir, Son of David; my daughter is miserably demonized.' 23. And he did not answer her a word; and his disciples having come to him, were asking him, saying, 'Let her away, because she crieth after us;'

24. and he answering said, 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'

And having come, she was bowing to him, saying, 'Sir, help me;' 26. and he answering said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread, and to cast to the little dogs.' (Matthew 15:22-26, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Jesus, answering the Canaanite woman
Audience: the disciples and the woman, in Gentile territory
Location: the region of Tyre and Sidon
Time period: during the Galilean ministry

Theological reading

I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The saying is difficult on its face and the difficulty should be stated before it is addressed, because the episode ends with Jesus granting the request and commending the woman's faith in the strongest terms he uses of anyone.

The most defensible reading is that the statement describes the priority of the mission rather than its final boundary. Matthew's own gospel begins with Gentile magi and ends with the command to disciple all nations, and the same gospel records Jesus marvelling at a centurion's faith and saying that many shall come from the east and west to sit with Abraham. A writer who understood the saying as an absolute exclusion could not have framed his book that way. Paul states the same priority as a sequence, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The exchange itself resists a reading in which Jesus is simply refusing. The woman is not rebuffed and sent away; she answers the metaphor by extending it, and the reply she receives grants her request outright. Several commentators read the initial saying as drawing out a confession, in the same way that other Matthean encounters press a petitioner toward an explicit statement of faith. That reading has to be held with some tentativeness, since the text does not narrate motive.

The harsher element, the reference to dogs, is mitigated but not erased by the diminutive form used, which indicates household dogs rather than scavengers, and by the woman's own use of the image in reply. Treatments that make the exchange entirely comfortable are not describing the text.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G0622 - apollymi, apollymi, Strong's G0622

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.