Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 15:24

"But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." — Matthew 15:24 (ASV)

I am not sent (or better, I was not sent) except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This, then, was what had restrained Him. Those wandering sheep, without a shepherd, were the appointed objects of His care.

If He were to go beyond that limit in a single case, it might be followed by a thousand. By becoming the Apostle of the Gentiles before the appointed time, He would have ceased to draw the hearts of Israel to Himself as their Redeemer.

We recall the case of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:10) and wonder why that was not a decisive precedent in the petitioner’s favor. The two cases, however, were on a very different footing.

The centurion, who had built a synagogue, was practically, if not formally, a proselyte of the gate. Since the elders of the synagogue pleaded for him as worthy, the work of healing performed for him would not alienate them or their followers.

The woman, on the contrary, belonged to the most scorned and hated of all heathen races—the people of Canaan, on whom the primeval curse was held to rest (Genesis 9:25). Furthermore, she had not yet done anything to show that she was in any sense a convert to the faith of Israel.