John Calvin Commentary Matthew 15:27

John Calvin Commentary

Matthew 15:27

1509–1564
Protestant
John Calvin
John Calvin

John Calvin Commentary

Matthew 15:27

1509–1564
Protestant
SCRIPTURE

"But she said, Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters` table." — Matthew 15:27 (ASV)

Certainly, Lord. The woman’s reply showed that she was not hurried along by a blind or thoughtless impulse to offer a flat contradiction420 to what Christ had said. As God preferred the Jews to other nations, she does not dispute with them the honor of adoption, and declares that she has no objection whatever that Christ should satisfy them according to the order which God had prescribed. She only asks that some crumbs — falling, as it were, accidentally — should come within the reach of the dogs.

And at no time, certainly, did God confine his grace among the Jews in such a manner as not to bestow a small taste of it on the Gentiles. No terms could have been employed that would have described more appropriately, or more justly, that dispensation of the grace of God which was at that time in full operation.

420 “Pour se rebequer et heurter directement;” — “to give a saucy and open contradiction.”;” — “to give a saucy and open contradiction.”