NOTES for Mar 7:26-29
Today the evangelist for the first time draws our attention to the fact that Jesus heals not only Jews but also representatives of other peoples who lived in the lands surrounding Palestine. In this case the daughter of a woman called "Syrophoenician" is in view. In the New Testament this is what residents of the Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, are called. These cities are located in the territory of present-day central Lebanon. The modern name of Sidon is Saida.
At first glance, Jesus' treatment of the woman who turned to Him for help seems too harsh: today we perceive comparing a person to a dog as humiliation and insult. Yet in those days and in the setting in which the Savior's earthly ministry took place, His phrase sounded somewhat different. In those days there could be no talk at all of universal equality or equal rights for everyone. This also concerned, among other things, the equality of people before God: for a Jew, for example, every pagan was in this respect a second-class person, since he did not belong to the people of God and, as a rule, did not think about God. Even those representatives of pagan peoples who were interested in Judaism and came to synagogues to listen to the reading of Scripture and the sermon, as did happen, were still not considered equal by Jews. Full equality required becoming a Jew all the way: being circumcised, beginning to observe all religious rules, in a word, completely changing one's way of life. Those who did not do this were considered ritually unclean by Jews, the same as unclean animals, among which they included dogs.
By comparing the woman who came to Him with a dog, Jesus evidently means only to tell her that the Kingdom of God, which she wants to touch, and without such a touch no healing is possible, is given first of all to the "children," that is, to the Jews as the people of God, and only afterward to everyone else. When the woman agrees to this order of things, she receives what she asks for just as those who belong to the people of God do. In this way the evangelist points out that the Kingdom of God, which Jesus brought into the world, is open to everyone, whether Jew or pagan.