As the spring and summer progressed, Jesus and the twelve expanded their area of ministry. With this tour, they moved into areas that were less Jewish and less provincial than Galilee. This brought them to just beyond the northern part of Israel, along the Mediterranean coast into what is now Lebanon.

Here, we come to one of the reactions of Jesus that is hard to understand. To our ears, his attitude sounds cruel and racist. The idea that Jesus would withhold deliverance from anyone because they were not Jewish offends us. Jesus certainly didn’t treat the Samaritan women with any kind of bigotry and Samaritans were hated more than the Greeks. Also, if he didn’t want to deal with these people, why did he come?

Some have suggested that he may have been there to hide out after his confrontation with the Jerusalem Pharisees, who now sought his life. If so, there should have been better places to hide than in this pagan area. The fact that it wasn’t time for Jesus’ death may have been a factor, but surely, there was more to it than that.

Humanly speaking, there seem to be two factors in the woman gaining her request—which wouldn’t have been lost on his followers, and hopefully not on us. She was humble and she was persistent. It’s as if Jesus waited to see if she was serious. And what of humility? Most would have bristled when called a dog. Most would have responded, “I’m as good as any Jew.” She didn’t demand equality, however, but only asked for the excess, that is, the fallen crumbs.

The “children that should have their fill” is generally seen as a reference to the Jewish people as an ethnic group. It is more likely a spiritual designation for true believers—who were overwhelmingly Jewish—than a physical one. The need was not physical, but spiritual. Certainly, those who have the right to deliverance are believers, which the woman was not—at least initially.

From a practical point, without a commitment to the true God, deliverance is short lived at best. Therefore, it was crucial that Jesus bring her to that point. True, the specific request was for the child, but continued protection of the child required a delivered parent.