We began with a few additional thoughts from our previous study. When we heard that Jesus came to “villages, cities and countryside” last week, teaching and helping people (Mark 6:53-56), this was a direct fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that the Lord God Himself would come as Shepherd for His people. See Ezekiel 34:11-16. “I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country... I Myself will be the Shepherd of My sheep... and will bring...
We began with a few additional thoughts from our previous study. When we heard that Jesus came to “villages, cities and countryside” last week, teaching and helping people (Mark 6:53-56), this was a direct fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that the Lord God Himself would come as Shepherd for His people. See Ezekiel 34:11-16. “I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country... I Myself will be the Shepherd of My sheep... and will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong (the ones who take advantage of and harm the other sheep) I will destroy.”
Jesus was God the Son, Who became a human being, one of the sheep, in order to help as many sheep as possible in His ministry (Mark 6:53-56), and to battle those who were being bad shepherds and leading people away from God’s truth (Mark 7:1-23). Jesus came from the line of King David and was (and is) the “one Shepherd” predicted to come (Ezekiel 34:23).
As True God, as well as a real man, He was able to interpret God’s will perfectly, and even change some things under the “New Covenant” He was bringing in - including “declaring all foods clean” (Mark 7:14-19). He was able to identify our sinful human nature and hearts, out of which come all kinds of evil (Mark 7:20-23). And later, Jesus would declare, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep,” predicting His death on the cross to pay for all sins and bring new life and hope to His people, His sheep, in His resurrection from the dead (John 10:11, 17-18).
Opposition to Jesus was growing, though, from the false shepherds, the religious leaders, because of what He was saying and doing. Even the people in Galilee were focusing too much on His miracles and misunderstanding His teachings. So, as we hear in Mark 7:24, Jesus went away, outside of Galilee and the land of Israel to “the region of Tyre and Sidon” to the north. Most of the people there were Gentiles, non-Jews; but even there, people had heard about Jesus and what He was doing. A Greek woman from that area came to Jesus, begging that He would cast a demon, an unclean spirit, out of her little daughter (Mark 7:25-26).
At first, Jesus seemed to be very harsh with her, reminding her that He had come “first” for the children of Israel. (Most of His time was spent within Israel, reaching out to fellow Jews. His suffering, death, and rising from the dead all had to happen within Israel, too, as predicted in prophecy.) Then He seemed to be calling her a “dog,” which was a derogatory term some Jews used for non-Jews. He did not use the term for a wild dog or a street dog, though, dogs that people disliked very much. He used the term for a little dog, one that might be kept as a pet, a part of the family.
The woman did what He really wished her to do - to keep asking and believing that that He could and would help her and her daughter. She said, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She was willing to accept that Jesus came first for the Jews; and she trusted that even a few crumbs from Jesus would be enough for her daughter.
It was a great statement of faith in Jesus; and this was the only person in all of Mark’s Gospel to call Jesus “Lord,” other than Jesus speaking about Himself. “For this statement,” Jesus said, “you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” The daughter was healed (Mark 7:27-30). This humble, persistent prayer was prayed “from under the table,” the commentator, Martin Franzmann, says. Jesus was showing that He came to be the Savior of all people, not just the Jews. All nations could be supplied with His blessings.
Jesus then traveled back, avoiding Galilee, to the region of the Decapolis - another largely non-Jewish area, where He had been earlier and cast out many evil spirits from a man (Mark 5:1-20). That healed man and others had spread the news about Jesus; and soon, some people brought to Jesus a man “who was deaf and had a speech impediment,” begging that Jesus would heal the man (Mark 7:31-32). Jesus took the man away to a private place and put his fingers in his ears and spit and touched the man’s tongue. The man could not hear, and this was probably a way of letting the man know that He was going to heal him, so that he could both hear with his ears and speak with his tongue. Some Jews thought that spit had some curative power, too; but Jesus needed only to look to heaven in prayer and say with a deep sigh “Be opened” in Aramaic, and the man could hear and speak plainly.
It was a great miracle, and the people could not help but tell others, even though Jesus told them to keep quiet about it. You can imagine that the healed man was eager to use his new powers of speech and hearing. He was likely a non-Jew, among mostly non-Jews, too; but the people spoke with honor of Jesus and more accurately than many Jews, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:33-37).
These were exactly the kind of miracles predicted in the Old Testament for the time when the Messiah, the Christ, the promised Savior came. (See Isaiah 29:18-19 and 35:2-6. Note that “the poor among mankind would exult” in the one true God (29:19). The Savior, Jesus was coming to help all peoples, as He was demonstrating in helping non-Jews, too, on this trip outside Israel. This too had been predicted. See Isaiah 42:1, 5-9 and 56:7, for example.)
This care for non-Jews shows itself again in Chapter 8 of Mark. Jesus was most likely still in a non-Jewish area, when a great crowd gathered and listened to Him for three days. The people had run out of any food that they brought with them, and still they wanted to keep hearing more from Jesus. Jesus was concerned about the people, that they might become ill and faint before getting back home. He asked his disciples about this, and as before, they say, “How can one feed these people in this desolate place?” They had seen the feeding of the 5,000 men, plus women and children, by Jesus; but they can’t even seem to remember or to turn to Jesus for help.
As before, Jesus had the people sit down and took the seven loaves of bread and a a few small fish, gave thanks to God and blessed that little bit of food, and fed about 4,000 people. In this case, again, the crowd was mostly Gentiles, non-Jews; yet Jesus helped them all with His spiritual and physical food. Seven baskets of food were left over.
Numbers often have some symbolic significance, too. Some think that the seven baskets represent God’s care for the seven Gentile nations around Israel, while the 12 baskets at the feeding of the 5,000 Jews represent God’s care for the 12 tribes of Israel. Clearly, Jesus was caring for both Jews and non-Jews. That means that He cares about us, too, no matter who we are and where we come from.
Jesus dismissed the crowd and quickly went back across the Sea of Galilee to a part of Galilee that we cannot identify for sure. This is the only mention of Dalmanutha in the Bible, and we don’t know where it was. Next week, we will hear how Jesus was quickly confronted with the same problems he had earlier, among His own people. He faithfully carried on His ministry, though, in spite of many challenges; and he did it for us all.
