Smoodock's Blog

An interesting event takes place immediately after Jesus helped the Canaanite woman, and we tend to miss this, if we merely give the text a cursory read. Matthew has Jesus depart, probably from Capernaum, to Galilee’s border with Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21). The text doesn’t tell us why. In fact, Matthew allows us to infer that it was as though he knew about the Canaanite woman and journeyed north simply to help her out, but Mark won’t permit us to draw that conclusion. He tells us that Jesus traveled there and entered a specific house to meet privately with someone who lived there (Mark 7:24). We aren’t told who, and we are left to guess the man’s identity, as we follow the events that take place, as a result of Jesus’ northerly excursion. Perhaps, the events that followed occurred as mere happenstance, but if Jesus had a plan, and I think he did, the visit was important to that plan, and the man’s identity can be inferred from what follows.

After Jesus arrived, both Matthew and Mark have the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22; Syrophoenician, according to Mark 7:25-26) following Jesus, asking him to heal her daughter who is possessed of a demon. How does Jesus know her? How does she know Jesus? Is she a proselyte or a God-fearer? Does she worship with the Jews? The text is silent about these matters. What if she and Jesus met for the first time on Galilee’s border with Tyre and Sidon? Certainly, the text allows this, perhaps even suggests it. How did she meet Jesus? Was she there in the home of the man that Jesus came to meet with, privately? Was she in his employ, and did she overhear what the man and Jesus spoke of, and is this where she came to understand what Jesus could do for her daughter?

All this is guesswork, but possible; some of it may even be probable, but it is still guesswork. However, lets continue a bit further. Immediately after Jesus helped the woman, Matthew has Jesus return to the Sea of Galilee, after which he went up a mountain and sat down (Matthew 15:29). This leads us to believe Jesus is back in Capernaum. However, once again, Mark won’t permit that conclusion. He tells us that Jesus did, indeed, return to the Sea of Galilee, but he crossed it and came to the coasts of the Decapolis (Mark 7:31)! So, we have Jesus leaving Capernaum to meet privately with a man to the north near Galilee’s border with Tyre and Sidon. Immediately after that meeting, Jesus returned to the Sea of Galilee and crossed over to the Decapolis. Once again, the text doesn’t say, but, if Jesus had a plan in mind, it is very possible that the man he met with privately, could have been the man he had healed earlier, and whom Jesus told to remain in the Decapolis to tell the folks there how the God of Israel had mercy on him (cp. Mark 5:19-20). Perhaps this man, who wanted to leave with Jesus, relocated to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, after he did as Jesus commanded him, and maybe Jesus wished to speak with him prior to his return to the Decapolis. Guesswork? Yes, but possible and logical, if true.

Keep in mind that Matthew wrote his narrative without submitting to the confines of strict chronology. Rather he published his work according to themes. Earlier, he mentions that Jesus went to the Decapolis, more specifically the land of Gennesaret (Matthew 14:34), where the folks there brought their sick, hoping that they might touch the tassels of his clothes and be healed (Matthew 14:34-36). I believe that what Matthew placed immediately following the feeding of the 5000 in Bethsaida (Matthew 14:13-33) should be understood to belong at Matthew 15:29 (cp. Mark 7:31), if chronology is important, which it is for our present study.

Notice that a great multitude came to Jesus, bringing their lame, blind, maimed and others, laying them before Jesus to be healed (Matthew 15:30) and this is very similar to what is said to have occurred in Matthew 14:34-35), implying the events are one and the same. The multitude (gentiles) was in awe and wondered over the things that Jesus had done, and they gave glory to the God of Israel (Matthew 15:31). This seems to put this event in sharp contrast to what occurred earlier with the multitude (Jews) that followed Jesus to Bethsaida (cp. Luke 9:10), who, despite the miracles done among them, eventually left Jesus and followed him no more (John 6:66). Keep in mind that all of this occurs immediately following Jesus’ teaching about what defiles a man, vis-à-vis what/who is clean and unclean, and washing one’s hands, according to the traditions of the elders, has no effect upon this (Matthew 15:10-20).